


The English Descendants

by LadyLorena



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 44
Words: 54,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5641300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLorena/pseuds/LadyLorena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sir Thomas Sharpe is dead. There is far too much to think about, though, to rest peacefully. And he certainly cannot rest knowing he has a family beyond the confines of Allerdale Hall. But what do they know of him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sir Thomas Sharpe is dead.

He hasn't been dead for very long, but the thing about being dead is that, with the ability to drift in and out of time, it feels like both a very short and a very long time at the same time. Which gets rather confusing to the newly deceased.

He has been thinking, though, and _that_ , he discovered quite quickly, is a good way to become a very sad ghost.

But at the same time, death gives one the time to figure things out and much about his life is quite a lot clearer without the trappings of actually being alive getting in his way. He likes also that he can escape into himself entirely and close out everything else. It is a bit like a sensory deprivation, but being dead, he has few senses that work the same way as they did before. Even sight is different. But at least there is time away from _her_.

Lucille started this. His childhood was hell, but he was happy at boarding school. So long as he minded his studies and kept to himself, no one hit him. No no one coerced him into anything in exchange for protection against beatings. And no on locked him away in the attic and told him to stay out of the library, a blessing he was entirely grateful for. When he had realized that this was possible, that the books were there for _him_ , he had felt an entire world of possibility explode into his imagination. It was in that room, by the light of a candelabra that had a terrible habit of dripping wax on books, that he had discovered his love of engineering. Of steam powered things and the exciting mechanisms that brought steel to life.

And then she had come for him. He had begged her to leave, to wait for him at the house, but she was insistent. It was only after he promised to come home for holidays and to send her whatever he could spare from his work as a page in the nearby university library that she agreed to let him finish his studies. He dreaded the house. He dreaded her, even though he loved her and could not imagine his life without her. He dreaded the look on her face when she would ask him to repay the kindness of his poor, oft-beaten older sister who had spared him all those lashes, especially that one time when their father caught her, not him, in the library. And even more-so, he dreaded the look on her face when she pushed him back on the bed. But at the same time...it was the only love he'd ever known. There was something there he recognized from the night she killed their mother that frightened him even more than the sounds the old house made as the wind whipped through the collapsing roof. A taking of power and control that he knew he fighting was a terrible idea. Lucille would have what she wanted, one way or another. And so he came to believe she was who he wanted as well. The only person he would ever need and the only love he could possibly ever feel.

He wanted to attend university, but she was insistent that he care for her and to keep the legacy of the Sharpe family alive at Allerdale Hall. He told her this was best done working from the city and he would be even more capable with his coveted engineering degree in hand. But she said no. And she begged him so insistently not to leave her alone that he stayed home and tinkered in the attic.

Then what little money he had managed to save ran out and Lucille had a plan. She knew he was pretty, more than most young men his age. There were things, she said, they could do to make this work. He could marry a wealthy young woman who was attracted to his face and his title. He resisted this plan, but she told him he would never have to consummate this marriage...or any other. She would take care of him. Just like she always did. And because he had no other plans, no other ideas on how to make life work when his mining invention wasn't yet functional and they needed money to finance the project, he went along with it. He hadn't realized she had such a skill for poisons. He had assumed she would be messy in her work, but she was not. He wondered, though, after she dumped the first body in the vat of clay in the cellar, if she really believed in his machine or if she just wanted to kill someone so she could be comfortable. He had the sneaking suspicion it was the latter. After his second wife died and joined his first, it was no longer a suspicion and this terrified him. He had no idea if she would stop. And he had no idea if, when the invention worked, there would be any freedom for him or if she would hang this over his head so he would never leave, no matter how wealthy the clay made them.

Then came Enola and Lucille became pregnant. Enola wanted to care for the child, no matter how strange he was, and this was something Lucille had not prepared for. Thomas felt something change in him, staring at the little face that he had made. And when the baby died, he deeply grieved, even though he did not let Lucille see this. She killed Enola shortly after. And Thomas knew that he could not live with any more deaths. The child was something innocent, something different, and something all the women he had lured to their home had once been. Something he had once been.

So he went to New York. Lucille had met Eunice and teased her about her brother, hinting that they might strike up a friendship, she could introduce the girl, and they could see where things would go, the bright and brilliant waltzing baronet. Thomas said nothing, but went ahead with his plan to visit the banks. There he met Edith, bright and witty, and saw the spark of something different. He hoped they would fund him. That this place would be different. That the plan to lure a young woman home could be abandoned in exchange for a new plan- one that required machines and steam and so much red clay that they would be rich as kings. But the answer was no, and as his heart sank, he knew this time that it was not just for one more person rejecting his ideas, the only thing he had that was truly his. It was also for the young woman who would die. He had to make his own plan, one that could run tandem with his sister's, one that might give the girl a chance of survival, and maybe even his own escape.

And that plan was Edith.

He knew she was tenacious. He knew she would fight for herself. So he told Lucille he wanted a different girl than the society woman she had found. He wanted to choose, this time, the wife he would bring home. And Lucille, who had never seen her brother participate in 'the work' of survival, begrudgingly consented. When she realized Edith was the daughter of a man who would hunt for her if she disappeared, a man who had also humiliated Thomas by forcing him to publicly shame the girl, she decided that this death had to be particularly brutal. No knives, no poisons. And then she stepped onto a train heading home having given Thomas explicit instructions. Seduce her. Kiss only when necessary. No sex. And come home quickly. She had not told him just how she had dispatched Mr Cushing, just that she had. But he knew her handiwork when he saw it. Edith's reaction was not one he was prepared for. He had never had to watch a wife react so immediately to brutal death. This time was different. And because his own plan depended on Edith's strength, seeing it falter frightened him.

When they returned to Allerdale Hall, he was happy to report to Lucille that he had done as asked. Here she was, untouched, and as quickly as possible. More quickly than any of the others. The workmen were always gone for the season when they returned, out of the way so his wives would never meet them.

Edith reacted to the house differently than the others. Awe, yes, but also with interest. It was not simply a fairy tale place, or a decrepit one she feared to enter. It was a mystery, and a place fit for the writer of novels with ghosts. This was not something Lucille liked about her. So she made tea as quickly as possible. Thomas mentioned it was not suitable for consumption, a hint he knew she would miss. Lucille later punished him dearly, as though he had given away their secret entirely.

Edith was the first wife to show an intense interest in his mechanical aptitude. And his interest in her story was not feigned, either. He wanted desperately to know if her protagonist could possibly escape his ghosts. And he knew he was falling in love with the young woman who brought sunlight into the darkness of Allerdale hall. Lucille would be unhappy with him and it was going to hurt. He would have to break the promise he made her when she set her gruesome plans in action- his promise to never fall in love. But it was not something he could help. It just happened. Kissing Edith in the workshop felt so natural, so instinctive. It was simply something he was compelled to do by every heartstring and nerve ending in his body. And he wanted to do it again and again and never stop. So when the opportunity came to stay the night away from the house, he could not have been happier, even as he slipped a letter in the post he knew would never be delivered. He finally had a night at peace. No one looking over his shoulder. No one telling him that he was hers and hers alone for all eternity, his own happiness second to hers. This was partnership of minds, bodies, and lovers and what he had been dreaming of since he discovered that marriage, for his classmates, was something to look forward to- something filled with laughter and light and a corner of the world all their own. For the first time in his life, he felt whole. In the morning, he realized what he had done and what Lucille was likely to do when she found out. Even if he never told her, she would know. He steeled himself for hard decisions, holding back tears he had not cried since he was a child and had seen his sister drive a cleaver through his mother's skull. She had been cruel, but she had been mother. In the grey dawn light before Edith woke, as she slept angelic beside him, he silently acknowledged that he might watch her die, too. He wanted to flee, then and there, but did not have the courage to tell Edith why. Because he could not admit to everything and risk losing her, they returned to Allerdale Hall.

Edith's face upon discovering he and Lucille broke his heart in a way he had not thought it could be broken. And then he felt terror for her. When she fell, Lucille shrugged as though she had dropped a toy. He knew she hoped they could be rid of her and move on to the next girl. Thomas wanted to tear her throat out. But he could never merely leave her, that much was true, no matter how much he wanted it. She would always find him.

Lucille had so firmly convinced him that to let any wife live would lead to his hanging and her institutionalization. He did not see any other end than his own if they survived. And he would take the blame for all of it, even though he had never touched the tea, touched the knives, done anything to actually kill anyone, merely been complicit. Running down the stairs after Edith's still body in the snow, he realized just how perplexing it was that his sister assumed she would simply be sent away and not tried for murder. How presumptive she was to believe that he would confess to save her. Perhaps if one of them were to die for these crimes, they both should. But greater than these, he feared for Edith and hoped that if she survived, she would accept a plea for forgiveness as the noose was tightened on his neck.

That Edith survived the fall was both a relief and a horror. And Alan's arrival was both a hope and a hell. He had never stabbed anyone before, but he knew he had to. It was the only way Edith might live. If this man loved her even a little, he would endure pain and struggle away from death for her. At least, Thomas thought, that was what he would do. It surprised him that he was thinking this way. That he was predicting the actions of a man in love based on his own beliefs about himself. That he had beliefs about himself at all, let alone those about love.

He knew he would confront Lucille one last time. That she would likely kill him in the process, but that there was a chance she would want to leave as badly as he did. As he had for years. But before he did, he had to tell Edith the truth with two short words. Two words he had said four times before and never once meant at the time he said them.

"I do."

He returned to Lucille and burned the pages. As the paper curled in the flames, he felt a part of his past dying, a wave of relief and peace following. He would not do this to Edith. He could not. Not to the first woman who loved him- probably the only person who had ever really loved him.

When Lucille stabbed him, he knew that he was right. This was not love. Or maybe it was the only kind of love she knew how to give- that of possession. When the blade pierced his skull, he knew it was death and it was an immense burden off his shoulders. But he knew he could not leave. Edith was still living, and he had to keep her that way.

Thomas had asked Lucille once when they were small children what happened after death. Did the kittens she drowned go to heaven? What about the people? Did their father go to hell? She had laughed and told him, no, there is nothing after death. We simply end. This terrified him. He had been still only a child and the idea of something later appealed to him during his harsh youth. At least if his parents beat him to death, there was something better waiting. But no, she said, quite authoritatively, there was nothing. Just an end. When they were older, after she was released from the asylum, she told him she was wrong. There was something there. But it sent most people to burn in hell, especially ones like her, and like him. He had no idea why he would burn in hell, but she seemed to know what she was talking about.

As the very freshly dead, he knew that he would rather stay around the house than find out. If anyone deserved hell, it was the man who lured young women to his sadistic sister for poisoning. He was feeling sorry for himself when Edith called out for help. It was not easy, but he stood still and silent while she bashed Lucille's head with the shovel. He thought he should possibly say something, but after all the years of watching her kill, it seemed only right that she should die for it. He only hoped that she would be merciful in the afterlife. He knew even then that she would haunt the house with him.

Sir Thomas Sharpe is dead.

And as he watches Edith sleep, Alan's wounds bandaged, a surgeon having been sent for, he thanks whatever is out there that she survived. That he chose someone strong enough to break the cycle of death. To free him from it, even if only a little, and even if not from the house or Lucille. He fades back to the house. He will watch her. He will guard her. It will be his purgatory, his payment for all he has done horribly wrong in his life. And unless she wants to see him, or he gets so terribly lonely he cannot stand it any longer, he will make sure she does not know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: I am relying on the summary of the novelization compiled by TheSirThomasSharpe on tumblr for a good chunk of the backstory for the Sharpe family. I do not have access to the novelization beyond the Google Books excerpts and, owing to the quality of writing, I'm not sure I'd want to spend money on it. But this particular tumblr user does a very good job and I am grateful for their work- it has been immensely helpful in both planning and writing this fic. I wil be happy to provide the link in a PM upon request.

Alan is sleeping comfortably when Edith wakes early in the grey light of morning. They are staying with the preacher's brother in one of the few houses with a guest room in the village. He sleeps on the bed, and she has a straw mattress on the floor. This was her insistence. She would not leave him, but could not accept that her injured friend would sleep on the floor, no matter how warm the room or comfortable the straw.

His bandages still seep blood, but only a little and only when he moves. She insisted on watching as the village nurse tied them and there are fresh linens boiled only the night before hanging on a drying rack in front of the fire. After he wakes, she will change them and boil the ones he is currently wearing with the hope that the doctor will arrive before too long.

There is a bathrobe left for her near the bathtub and a simple day dress waiting for her in the guest room. The nightshift she is wearing barely keeps her warm, and she soaks long in the bath before returning to the guest room to keep watch on her friend. She has no idea how both of them are alive. She does not want to return to the house, but there are things she must retrieve. Her handwritten manuscript, for one, that is tucked in the writing desk, and her clothes. She chuckles to herself- the book comes first, not the clothing. Clothing, she reasons, can always be borrowed, or purchased, but her writing is something only she can create. That it is her handwritten copy is even more dear to her. This is the copy her father read. The copy he saw such promise in. She regrets that his pen is somewhere in the house, likely never to be returned to her. The blood, she thinks, can always be washed from it until it is as new. It bought her a few moments, enough to get a real weapon, no matter how small, and enough to run with the devil at her heels.

Alan rouses as she is wrapping her ankle and she sits on the edge of his bed, gently placing a hand on his chest to keep him still. He winces, then sighs, relaxing back into the pillows.

"Good morning, Edith."

"Don't talk. You know it only hurts."

"Yes, but talking seems like the only thing I can do."

"This is true."

"I made it in time."

"Yes, you did. Now rest. We will have plenty of time to talk of yesterday when we are better rested."

Alan shakes his head, "I don't want to wait. If this were to become infected, I could quickly become delirious with fever and then we would have missed our chance."

"That isn't going to happen. They said the doctor should be here later today."

"You know, though, that we doctors make terrible patients. He might give up just to be rid of me." He smiles, a little joke that isn't really funny, but it is the best he can do at the moment.

"I'm sure he'll take your advice well- your patients always do."

"Most of them, yes. It's more the questions I'm likely to drive him mad with."

"I'll remind you if you get too inquisitive."

"Of course you will, Edith. We have always looked out for one another, haven't we?"

"Usually you for me, but yes."

"Since we were children."

Edith nods, "Yes, for that many years. Now hold still. I have to change your bandages. And it will hurt." She retrieves water from the bathroom and a towel to place under his side. She is careful, her author's mind picturing every move the nurse had made while cleaning and wrapping the wound. It didn't seem complicated, but the hardest part, Edith knows, will be seeing the gaping hole in his side. She steels herself. After all, just yesterday she bashed in a woman's skull with a shovel. She can bandage a wound without being ill.

He tries not to flinch, not to wince, as she moves him and pulls the bandages from around his torso, but it is nearly impossible. But she is, at least, moderately skilled in her movements and he thinks she would make a very good doctor's assistant. Or even a doctor, herself, should she decide to challenge the medical world and take up the scalpel. He lets his mind wander into imaginations of Edith in medical school, confronting old professors and demanding to sit her examinations when they try to tell her it is not a woman's place. It delights him and he smiles through his pain.

Edith notices, "What are you thinking about? I doubt many men grin so when they are being treated for a stab wound. Or are you grimacing and merely trying to hide it with something more pleasant?"

"I'm dreaming of your future career in medicine."

"I have a future career in medicine?"

"Given your care now, I consider it a distinct possibility." She is amused, but she does not reply, continuing with her work. "I still want to talk about what happened yesterday."

"I don't. You figured out many pieces of their puzzle, but there is more to the Sharpe's than you know. And that is not something I wish to speak of."

"May I ask one thing?"

"I give no guarantee of an answer."

"How did you find out about his other wives?"

"Enola showed me."

"Enola?"

"The woman before me. Her ghost. She was still there, ready to warn me and to show me what she could. I hope they find her body. She deserves a good burial. They all do. But she showed me where to find things, and she pointed out their secrets. So I feel more greatly indebted to her."

"Were there other ghosts in the house?"

"Lady Sharpe. But she was less than helpful. Just dead in the bathtub with a cleaver in her head."

"Oh. That's terrible."

"That it is. Imagine my shock at seeing such a thing."

"I shouldn't have let you go, Edith."

She clucks her tongue, "Alan, Alan, Alan... When have you ever been able to tell me what to do? I fell for Thomas. He had his charms... and I think he did love me. If not then, he did by the end. And it is over now. America awaits. Allerdale Hall can rot in the clay."

"I'm not fetching you his heart."

She is puzzled for a moment, and then her face brightens and she laughs, "You remember!"

"Yes- how could I not? You were so excited when you told me Mary pressed Percy's heart in a book. And then when you told Eunice and Mother you wanted to die a widow..."

"No, you don't have to bring me Thomas' heart. I don't want to be that much like Mary Shelley." She shakes her head and giggles, "I can't believe you remember that little comment. It was just an aside to shut them up."

"Well you certainly are no Jane Austin. She would not have had your strength."

"You exaggerate my fortitude."

"You faced down death, Edith. And a woman with a meat cleaver and a bloodlust. All in the face of horrible revelation and with an ankle that you shouldn't have even been able to walk on. But you did. And you fought back. You have well earned every admiration of your strength that I have."

She blushes, "Oh hush and let me finish your bandages."

"Promise to tell me what happened? How you found out about the wives? What other secrets Allerdale Hall holds? Everything? When you are ready." She is about to brush this request aside when she notices how serious he is and he takes her wrist, "Please, trust me with this?"

She nods, "In time. But not today. Today I have work to do. I have to hand your care to a doctor. And I have to sketch a map of the house and make a list of things I left there that the men need to bring back. And if I do not do this well, they could leave something important behind, like my novel."

"Oh, well we certainly wouldn't want that, Mrs. Shelley. We must make sure that novel is found."

"So let me finish these bandages so I can make my map."

"Yes, doctor."

"Oh you hush."

He smirks, "How often have I followed that instruction?"

"Never. You like talking far too much."

"Only to you. With my colleagues I am reserved, with my patients, professional, and with my family, I can't get a word in edgewise. And with the subjects Mother and Eunice favour, I'm not sure I want to."

"I'm flattered to be the object of your attention, dear friend." He smiles as she retrieves the fresh bandages and he helps her to tighten them across the wound the best he can. She has always been a quick learner. When done, she pats his arm and then rises. "I haven't had breakfast and, unlike you, I don't have any possibly punctured organs. So I am going to leave you with a book to take a little something to eat. No tea, though. I don't think I'll ever again drink tea."

"A detail I will learn later?"

"Yes."

"How is your ankle?"

"Better. Enough that, bound, I can hobble on it. After yesterday, I am fairly sure that pain no longer really matters." She hands him one of the few books their host was able to find for her the night before, "It's nothing greatly academic, mind you, but it will at least busy your mind for the few minutes I am gone."

After breakfast, she sits on her mattress and draws. Alan is forbidden from interrupting, but he can't help himself as she diagrams where everything is on every level. She wants nothing to do with the house, but she wants what of it can be sealed to be properly closed off none-the-less. It is, after all, her inheritance as Lady Sharpe. She lists what of hers ought to be where, includes a detailed description of the pen and where to find it, and notes that she thinks Enola and other women may be buried in the clay in the cellar. She does not mention a ghost. She makes a few other notes and sets the pages aside so she can occupy Alan.

The doctor arrives and the search party leaves for Allerdale Hall. Edith tries to keep busy, asking him what she can do to assist. He is not what she expected- she thought they would be served by a young man, a doctor inexperienced and assigned to the villages distant from the city centres to gain experience treating common maladies. But beside the bed sits an older man with white hair and an open, comforting personality. He accepts Edith's offer of help and enlists her to hand him his tools as he inspects the wound and stitches it closed.

"They tell me you were stabbed."

"Yes."

"Up at Allerdale Hall. The Sharpes finally went funny."

"I think they've been a bit off for years, Doctor. But things went horribly wrong when Edith married Sir Thomas."

"Ah. There were rumours about him. Her, too. Everybody thought she'd killed their mother. Maybe even father, too. They've been holed up in that house for too long. Go away every few years, come back, somebody says he got married. Nobody ever sees a wife. People make up stories on their own."

"If you're expecting us to tell you all the family secrets, it isn't going to happen."

"No, not at all, my friend. Just making light conversation."

Edith speaks, "Did you live in the village?"

"No, but Sir Sharpe used to send for me to treat his wife. It was clear she was frail because of him. Couldn't tell him that, though. So I did what little I could and said a prayer for her when he died. Another for the children. Neither of their parents were gentle or kind people. Doesn't surprise me that Thomas and Lucille would end up off."

Alan winces and the doctor gestures for Edith, "Hold his chest down. I'll do what I can for the pain, but this is going to hurt. I don't have the luxury of a city hospital supply room."

Edith has never heard a man cry out before as Alan does when the doctor pushes on his side and prods at the wound, looking for deeper problems. He dries his hands and shakes his head, satisfied that things will heal, before starting to stitch. There are tears in Alan's eyes and Edith lightly kisses his forehead and whispers that it will be over soon. It is. The doctor bandages him.

"Well, Dr McMichael, you're a lucky man. Not as lucky as if you hadn't been stabbed at all, but nothing about any of your injuries should kill you. Eat like you normally would. You'll hurt like the devil while it's healing, though, and you listen to this young lady when she tells you to rest."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"You thank your young lady here- I heard from the postmaster that she's the one who got you out of that house." He packs his bag and tips his hat to Edith, "Good day to you, miss. Take care of him." And to Alan, "Remember, listen to her. She's your nurse now."

The doctor leaves and Alan takes a long, slow breath in, letting it out just as gradually, "That hurt."

"I saw."

"Not as bad as being stabbed, mind you."

"I could have guessed that. What do you want to eat?"

"Eggs. Toast. Something dripping in grease. And coffee."

"Anything sweet?"

"Would it be inappropriate to say 'only you' in response to your question?"

"Likely, but it isn't as though anyone else is here to hear it."

"Bring me whatever you wish, dear Doctor Cushing, and I will submit to my medic's prescription."

Thomas watches, unseen, as they men from the villlage pack things from the house, nudging them in the direction of Edith's novel, helping them to find the things he hears them mention. Until they mount the stairs to the attic and one of them says something about his workshop. He runs (is that what ghosts do? -he wonders as he glides through the floor) to the door and slams it shut, locking it from the inside. But the lock has never held well, not since Lucille bashed the door in trying to find him after a particularly brutal beating, and with a little jiggling of the handle, the men are in his little sanctuary.

"What did she say she wanted from up here?"

"These ones- careful, now, she says they're fragile. We don't want her getting mad that we broke something."

"Girl's been through a lot. I heard they'd been killing women for years. She's the first one anybody met."

"I feel bad for 'em."

"The women?"

"Yeah, but the Sharpe's, too. My dad worked for the mine years ago. Said the old man was brutal. Watched him beat a man in this very house, and drag his daughter screaming from the library when he found her hiding. Some terrible things happened here long before the young ones brought those women around."

"Well best of luck to this one, then, for surviving it and not letting it haunt her. She needs a happily ever after from here out."

They check the list and begin to collect items from around the workshop. Thomas panics, but he does not want to be seen. But then another pair of men arrive with Enola's trunk and a sheet from Edith's bed that they begin tearing into strips, carefully wrapping the requested items. They nest them in the trunk, lined with a quilt, and tuck padding where the pieces touch to assure that none of them break.

"Do you know why she wants 'em?"

"No, she just handed me the list. Said to be careful, they were brilliantly made and she'd never find someone to fix them."

"All these spare pieces- you think we should take 'em if we have the space? Seems a shame to let the weather claim 'em. Could help her out if she needs to have one of 'em repaired."

"Yeah, let's. I'll find a box."

"Or we could just take this drawer thing- seems like the way they were supposed to be organized."

"Well you figure it out. We'll keep wrapping."

They take his spare pieces, a few half-finished mechanisms, and his tools, all tucked in his watchmaker's drawers and a wooden tool box. When they return to the village, they wrap them tightly in fabric and paper and the postmaster sends them to Buffalo. They tell Edith they retrieved everything she asked and did what she instructed to the letter- her clothes stay, everything else goes to the McMichael house.

Thomas and Lucille's bodies are brought to the church, and the doctor confirms their causes of death. He calls for Edith. As the Widow Sharpe, she has the right to make any requests for burial. She makes one. That Thomas and Lucille be buried in opposite corners of the churchyard so he can rest peacefully. While the request seems strange, they honour it. She also chooses a place for his other wives to be buried once they are found and tells them she will wire them money from America for headstones. The priest insists she does not need to, that the Sharpes, at least, do not deserve them. But Edith insists.

They stay in the little village for a month as Alan heals. By that time, an ocean voyage is far too treacherous owing to the ice on the Atlantic, and while the steamers are advertising ships that will not sink and better ways to spot icebergs, neither Alan nor Edith feel as though risking death on the sea is wise. They have both seen enough of death. They winter in London with friends of his mother's and, at the first sign of spring and the melt of the grey winter, they return to Buffalo, ready to forget all about England. Edith, for one, is sure she never wants to return.

Thomas hopes she never does. Watching she and Alan, he sees the spark of something- something he thinks was always there, but never so apparant. And he knows this is where she is supposed to be.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

 

When Edith and Alan arrive in Buffalo, he takes her to his mother's home. Mrs McMichael is as cool as she has always been toward Edith and Alan knows she cannot stay there. She is far too needling about what happened at Allerdale Hall that has separated her from the dashing Sir Thomas, intended suitor to Eunice. It is at supper their first night back that Alan realizes how protective of Edith he has grown in the past months.

"Eunice, darling, are you still jealous of Edith? She comes back so soon after being married. Tell me...what happened? Did he leave you once he had your father's fortune, or did you choose to return on your own because you simply couldn't stand his sister?"

Edith stares, "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"He's dead."

Mrs McMichael gasps a little and Eunice grows a little pale as her mother asks, "What happened?"

"Lucille killed him. And stabbed Alan. And nearly killed me. Eunice should be glad he chose me for the waltz. I doubt she would have survived." Eunice's eyes look as big as tea saucers.

"So you're a..."

"Widow. Yes."

"Oh you poor dear, you're far too young to be widowed. You'll never find love now."

Alan wants to launch himself across the table and shake his mother. He wants to shout at her that yes, Edith will find love, and he knows exactly where. He slowly sets down his fork realizing just what thoughts have crossed his mind, something he has known for years but never so clearly. He waits for Edith's response, hoping he can find a way they can both gracefully leave.

"I had love, Mrs. McMichael. And I'm sure I will find it again. But next time, I hope no one gets stabbed in the face. Or anywhere else, really."

Alan sees the little twitch at the corner of Edith's lips and he knows she is happily horrifying them with these little details. There is a glint in her eyes, a mischief he recognizes all too well.

"Stabbed in the face?" Mrs McMichael asks, her hand rising to her cheek.

"Yes. Lucille stabbed Thomas a few times, but it was the one just below his eye that killed him. Of course, Alan can attest that any stabbing is a bad stabbing."

"Oh yes. Being stabbed in the ribs isn't exactly pleasant."

"Nor is the recovery."

"No. But I did recover."

"Unlike Thomas. Or Lucille, but she wasn't stabbed."

Mrs. McMichael wants to be too disturbed to ask, but something in her prompts her to speak anyway, "How did she die?"

"She was trying to kill me with the same cleaver she killed her mother with. I took a shovel to her head."

Eunice drops her silverware and flees from the table. Mrs McMichael excuses herself and follows. When they are out of earshot, Edith starts quietly giggling. Alan thinks at first she might be crying but then notices that she is smiling.

"Edith, you're wicked."

"I know. But it was just too easy... Consider it payback for all the years of torment from your sister and her friends. I hope they'll leave me alone now."

"I'm sure they will. Oh. There was a letter today from Mr Ferguson."

"The attorney?"

"Yes."

"Did you read it?"

"Only because I feared he would have more bad news for you. But I don't think it is. He heard we had landed and sent word that he has your crates from England. And he has been investigating the Sharpe family accounts. He asked that I relay these things to you."

"Thank you, Alan. After I find a place to settle, I will have him deliver them. But I don't want your mother poking around in them."

"Understood. Edith...perhaps we can consider another arrangement?"

Edith blushes a little, "What are you meaning to ask?"

"Possibly...we could find a home together?"

She sets her silverware aside, pats her lips with her napkin, and refuses to meet his gaze, "I'm sorry, but I don't think that would be very proper."

"Proper? We've lived together for the winter in London. What would be the trouble here?"

"What Eunice would say. Your mother's glares. You know she thinks I am a low woman. I'd rather not give her any more fuel for that fire."

He reaches for her hand and she draws back, "Edith...what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just think I will need a few months to recover from this ordeal."

"You're a terrible liar." She slips her hand in his, still outstretched, and starts crying, "Please. Tell me. You can trust me."

"I'm pregnant."

The weight of this revelation hits Alan as a mountain falling, "His."

"Yes."

"And?"

She wipes her eyes, "And I want to prove to him...wherever he is, that the Sharpe family wasn't inherently bad. That he was a victim of...of so much. And so was she. And their son...he was innocent. Just as they once were."

"Their son? You never said anything about a child..."

"He died very young. Enola tried to care for him. But he died- Lucille said he wasn't born right. But Thomas loved him. And as simple and childish as it sounds, that's the difference between them and us. Nobody loved Thomas and Lucille."

Alan moves to sit beside her, "You are the most caring, noble creature to have ever walked this earth." He folds her in his arms and she cries on his shoulder. "Will you allow me to help you raise this child? To be the father, without regard to this circumstance?"

She sits back a little so she can read his face, "Are you asking what I think you are?"

"Yes." She nods, "And if you would prefer, we can do so quietly. Mr Ferguson would stand as a witness if we asked."

"You would not ask your sister?"

"No. Nor Mother. Only those who will be kind."

Edith kisses his cheek, "Then let us take care of this soon before my condition becomes obvious and everything seems far harder than it already will be."

"After, do you want to leave Buffalo? Strike out for a life elsewhere?"

"Where?"

"I have a friend from medical school in Detroit. He offered a place in his practice shortly after I graduated."

She smiles, "Another adventure."

"Yes, but this time, the brick mansion will have no ghosts."

The next day, they visit Mr Ferguson in his office and he makes arrangements. When they return to the McMichael household that evening, they are husband and wife. Alan announces this over supper. His mother cannot find her words. Eunice stammers out a halfhearted congratulations. A week later, he tells them that he has accepted Dr Zachary Schiller's offer to join his practice in the bustling city of Detroit. Edith helps him pack his office and his rooms. His mother alternates between scowling and begging him to stay with tears in her eyes and woeful words about leaving his poor lady mother and delicate flower of a sister alone in a harsh city. But Alan heard these same things during the weeks he was studying without visiting home and he knows they can manage themselves very well without him.

Edith's belly is showing just enough for it to be clear that she is pregnant by the time they step onto the train that will carry them west. Alan is her gentle knight, ever watchful of her step, carrying her bags, escorting her to her seat, and offering to get anything at all to make her travels more comfortable. She is beautiful and he is in awe of the changes pregnancy brings and the entire idea that there is a tiny human growing inside her body. He knows, as a doctor, that this should seem commonplace, just another function of the female of the species, but he cannot help but let it be a marvel.

The few days after they arrive in Detroit are a blur. There is a house waiting, a lovely red brick house in Brush Park not far from Dr Schiller's practice. Their neighbours are in the midst of change, with the wealthy moving to the more fashionable neighbourhoods farther from the city centre and large numbers of Jewish families moving in, the mansions divided to house them. There are many languages to hear and Edith's imagination overflows with wonderings on their stories. There are still some new houses going up as well, and the eminent architect, Albert Kahn, lives not far from the Cushing-McMichael family. Alan invites Dr Schiller and his wife, Rebecca, to the house for supper as soon as they have a kitchen set up and, because their dining table has not yet arrived, he proposes they sit around a coffee table on the floor on the cushions from the couch. Edith is initially embarrassed by this, but Alan, ever good natured about such setbacks, greets his guests with humour.

"Zachary, Rebecca, welcome to our home in progress! Do come in, though you'll find that we have a few key pieces of furniture missing. Including, you will notice, the dining table."

Rebecca kisses her hosts' cheeks, "Then shall we sit on the floor, as the Japanese do?"

"It is the only place we can sit, unless you know how to use the ceiling."

She erupts in peals of laughter and then bustles to Edith, "Oh, my dear, you have a clever husband! But come, show me what we must finish in the kitchen. You look tired and should sit somewhere comfortable, rest your feet."

"Oh, no, you don't have to help- I'm fine."

"You are a terrible liar, darling. I can see on your face that perhaps your back aches and your feet have started to swell these past few days- you are new to it and it is uncomfortable."

"How do you know?"

She pats beside her eye, "A midwife sees everything, my dear. And I have been training with a very good one. I am not ready to do such things on my own yet, but you should meet her. She is very skilled. But first, a chair. You do have one here, no?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good! Now show me what you need done in the kitchen. Then we will have the men bring the chair to us and we will get to know one another. Would you like me to make you tea?"

"No, no tea, please. Unpleasant memories from my first husband."

Rebecca raises one eyebrow, "Oh? You have been married before?"

"Yes. And he died rather terribly. Killed by his sister. So I would rather not take tea."

"Of course. I am sorry if I have offended."

"No, no. It's alright. But I wouldn't mind a little warm milk with honey and cinnamon, if you would like to make it."

Rebecca's face brightens and she busies herself with the task. She calls for Alan to bring a comfortable chair into the kitchen and shortly there is an armchair tucked cozy in the corner. Rebecca playfully chastises him for not including an ottoman and he retrieves one, happy to be helpful. She shoos him from the kitchen and lets Edith instruct her on how to finish cooking their supper. When it is ready, Rebecca insists that Edith let her carry everything to the table and that she worry only about making herself comfortable. They make light conversation over supper. Near the end, after Rebecca brings out desert, Zachary asks if they have thought of names for the baby.

"For a boy, we were thinking Carter, perhaps. After Edith's father. But she's fairly certain she's carrying a little girl."

Rebecca claps once, "Oh, mother's intuition! We shall see if you read it correctly. What do you think you will name her?"

"Charlotte Enola. Charlotte was my mother's name," Edith answers.

"Wherever did you find Enola? I have not heard it but once or twice."

"She was a woman I encountered briefly in England, but she made somethings quite clear that I needed to know. I owe her a great deal I will never be able to repay, as she is deceased."

"It is a lovely name."

"Thank you."

Alan takes Edith's hand, "We are eager to meet our new little light, boy or girl. Either way, we will be happy."

Edith smiles. Happy. Content. Her life in Detroit with Alan is the opposite of what she had at Allerdale Hall with Thomas. But she thinks of him still, on occasion, and she hopes that somehow, he is at rest. That he has found peace. And that he will see with the birth of this child that there was nothing wrong with the Sharpe blood, that there is love and light in his family and even in him.


	4. Chapter 4

Edith's handwritten novel sits, untouched in her desk. She has thought about typing it again, especially as her pregnancy comes closer to its end and she knows she will have so little time to sit with her work after she has a newborn in her arms. But there is too much of it that reminds her of Thomas and, despite her dream of being a published author, she lets it rest.

Enola's trunk and Thomas' watchmaker's cabinet and toolbox sit, untouched, in the attic. She knows some day she will want to go through them again, but this is not the time. She will have enough reminders of him when the baby is born. Charlotte Enola. She knows this is who she will meet. She wonders if the child will look like her or look like her father.

A few weeks before the baby is to come, she receives a letter from the village postmaster. They went back to Allerdale Hall to look for bodies after the thaw and they found them in the cellars. All four were interred together, their bodies indistinguishable due to the time in the clay. They want names. Edith retrieves the envelopes from her trunk and writes back with what she knows of their lives and their deaths. She wires money for headstones. And she tells them the baby was Enola's.

Thomas watches, as always, awed by Edith's strength as she endures mornings of nausea and evenings during which she is so warm she cannot share her bed. It has been difficult for him to stay in Edith's present, but by watching her and keeping his focus very narrow, he has managed not to slip too often between times. He has seen the house, though, in the future. It will be seventy years before it begins to look rough. In a century, it will fall to rubble. He does not follow the family that far, though, preferring to see things as they happen. Linear time is, he admits, a hard habit to break, even though he now exists in the past, present, and future.

The final weeks of her pregnancy are miserable. She hardly wants to eat. The thin porridge Alan makes her one morning triggers a memory and she retches, fleeing the room for the bathroom. He finds her sobbing over the toilet. He wipes her mouth, finds a cloth to run under cool water to press on the back of her neck, and waits for her to tell him what he did wrong. She tells him of Lucille's slow, scraping spoon as she lay in bed, unable to lift her head. He promises never to make it again and asks if there are other foods he should know not to make.

"Well she did nearly hit me with a frying pan of eggs, but I don't think those are a problem."

"What on earth did she do that for?"

"It was the morning after we had stayed the night in the spare room at the post. There was a terrible storm...but she knew we'd finally consummated our marriage. So she threw the frying pan. I had no idea why, at the time, but now...she was jealous of having to share Thomas."

"But you were his wife."

"And, apparently, the first one he'd ever made love to."

"She hadn't let him with the others?"

"I woke every morning to find his side of the bed empty. No. So long as he was in Allerdale Hall, his life was not his own." She pauses, wipes her eyes, and sighs, "I'm sorry, this isn't something you need to hear about."

"No, no, don't feel badly. If you want to talk, I am here to listen."

"But about sex and Thomas?"

"If you need to say it, yes."

"But that seems hurtful. You were not the first."

"Nor were you mine, and I have been open about this. It does not hurt to know you enjoyed the more intimate company of your first husband. It hasn't been that long- you're still practically in mourning. And don't say you aren't- you saw a spark of genius and kindness in him few others did. And knowing how tightly she controlled him makes it easier for me to see him through your eyes and not as a mere shell of a person, a villain dark and inhuman."

"Perhaps you should be called Doctor Alan McMichael, Saint, for there are few so patient and understanding."

"You are far too generous in your esteem, my love. Now, come. Let's get you some water and find you something else to eat. Applesauce? Rebecca sent some her sister canned last fall."

Thomas, invisible to either of them, trembles at the thought of Lucille's porridge. He hadn't thought about it before Edith, that she would poison something other than the tea. That the last things the other three had eaten had been so tainted, not even a final meal in peace. He'd only been in the house for Pamela's death- he had held her hand and watched the light fade from her eyes. It had been deeply upsetting, but not to Lucille. She made him dump her body in the clay and after, had taken great glee in having him all to herself again. It had been one of the most miserable nights of his life. When he wasn't there for Margaret and Enola's passings, he returned to find dead shells he disposed of in the clay. Even on those nights, being tugged into Lucille's bed had been incredibly difficult. He wanted time for grief and she had none. But things seemed to go back to normal shortly after. More time together, the unpleasant and jealous Lucille fading into the girl she had always been when alone with him. At least until Edith. Everything was different with Edith. And then that moment he realized that telling her to never drink the tea was useless because she'd found another way to make her take her poison...it was a sinking feeling he vowed to carry with him in his guilt.

She does not know it, but every time Rebecca arrives with old Mother Lebewitz, midwife to most of the Jewish mothers with little children running around Brush Park, Thomas is present, eagerly waiting to hear what she has to say. He is there when Edith tells them that the baby is not Alan's, that she belongs to her first husband, and he watches as both women embrace her and assure her that so long as Alan loves her, he will be father. It is both reassuring to know that his child will be raised by a good man and heartbreaking to think that he will likely never be known to her. Of course, he could travel to the future to find out what she knows, or to appear to her and tell him herself, but he doesn't want to mix up when he is and miss something.

She delivers the baby quickly. Mother Lebewitz wraps the child in a soft blanket and hands her to her exhausted mother. It is a miracle, he thinks, that Edith did not miscarry after the events at Allerdale Hall. She is even stronger than he already knew.

Edith sees her hair first. As she nurses for the first time, she gently brushes her fingers through Charlotte's dark locks and prays that she is right, that there is not inherent madness in the Sharpe blood.


	5. Chapter 5

The child is a few days old when Alan is called to attend to one of his patients- a judge in Ann Arbor. He will not be home until late. She settles in for a quiet evening with the baby and Regina, the neighbour girl she has hired to help during Alan's absence. The child is dozing on her chest and Edith is drifting in and out of sleep when she hears a soft knock on the bedroom door. She calls for Regina to enter, but when the door swings open, no one is there. Edith calls for whomever it is to show themselves and he does, breaking his promise to himself to only make his presence known if she wants to see him. But he knows he needs this moment. She stares.

"Thomas."

"Edith."

"Don't touch her."

He stares at the tiny bundle sleeping on Edith, "What did you name her?" He already knows, but he wants to hear it from her lips.

"Charlotte Enola Cushing McMichael."

"Is she...?"

"Yours? Yes. And she is beautiful."

He cannot help himself. He bends low and gently kisses the child's dark hair. She stirs in her sleep. He steps away, knowing Edith won't want him to stay so near.

"That she is. May she be so brave as well, in exploring this wide world. Tell me, have you received my letter?"

"What letter?" He vanishes. Someone knocks on the door, "Who is it?"

"Who else would be, ma'am?" Regina asks as she enters with evening coffee.

"Has there been a letter today?"

"Yes, ma'am. I have it right here. It appears to have been through some poor weather, to say the least, and, if I might venture a guess, perhaps it was in an accident or two...or the mail ship sank." It is battered so badly that it appears to have been placed in a second envelope, the original wax seal bulging beneath the paper.

Edith takes it and carefully slits the flap, "Thank you, Regina. May I have a moment alone?"

"Of course."

Edith examines the waxed inner envelope first. It is addressed to her, care of her father. That has been crossed out, her father's attorney's address written between the lines. From there, it was sent on to Detroit, but based on its condition, it appears to have been lost enroute, the enveloped damaged, and tucked in the new envelope for the remainder of its journey. There is no return address, but the handwriting on the original address is familiar. She draws the letter out, a single sheet, and smooths it on her drawing table.

_I, Sir Thomas Sharpe, do declare that on this day, I, in sound mind and body, will my estate, in whatever sense it remains, to my beloved Edith. If my sister is yet living, may this be the confession that damns her._

_Lucille killed Lady Sharpe with a cleaver to the head._

_I watched in horror, but with little I could do to stop her._

_I let Lucille convince me to marry four women to steal their inheritances or fortunes._

_She poisoned them with toxic tea._

_There are bodies in the mine vats._

_I had a son. He died after but a few days. I did love him._

_His mother was my sister. This is our deep shame. I am not blameless, but I could not stop it when it began in my childhood and could not escape it as I grew older._

_Lucille killed Carter Cushing._

_She will kill me, this I know. I only hope Edith is still living. And that Lucille is not._

_I deeply regret most of my life for these reasons. May what I leave behind be placed in the hands of the single bright light in it all._

_Sir Thomas Sharpe_

There is another letter on the back of this one.

_My beloved Edith._

_I sent this from the post office when we went out together- a letter written hastily in advance, anticipating that you would live at least long enough for my parts to come. I addressed it so it would meet you in America, for I know you will, if you survive this place, return there soon. Your father was a good man, this I know, and there are those who will look after this letter if it is addressed to him. I grieve deeply for what she did to him. There was a brutality to the act that did not expect. I suspect it was because I chose you and rejected the prey she wanted. She wanted to be sure you were firmly broken. Or that is my guess. He also discovered that I had been married before and I suspect his request that I reject you also was on her mind. But I admired him for his work in steel as a self made man- he was everything I could not be, everything I wanted so desperately. And I even admired his dedication and great love for you when he told me that I was to break your heart and leave Buffalo, never to return. I did not know that kind of love of father to child, nor did Lucille. We are the children of the opposite. Your genuine belief in my heart is proof that he did the best by you that any man could do for his daughter. Should you ever bear children, I hope they are so lucky to have a man so faithful to call their father. Knowing you, they will. You will settle for no less in the man you choose to raise a family beside. But it will not be me- I will not have that much time, nor do I think I am so good a man. I cannot be, not with what I have done._

_Lucille wants to finish her work. I can do little to stand in her way. But I will, and I know she will kill me for choosing you and not solely her. And it will be soon. I hope this letter finds you well and recovering from whatever ordeal she put you through after my death. If you have not found it, there is a diary in my watchmaker's cabinet. Please, if it is not too late, retrieve it and keep it safe, even if you never open it. If you do, it will be the closest to knowing me you have ever been. Let it stand as my confession._

_I am so sorry._

_I love you, Edith, and I hope I am given one chance to show you that I mean this. Please, if you ever think of me, think of me at least as honest in this one moment._

_Thomas._

Edith stares at the letter, then gently traces the edges, "Oh, Thomas...I know you are...and you did."

She calls for Regina, "Will you watch Charlotte for a moment? I have something I'd like to retrieve from the attic."


	6. Chapter 6

In 1905, Edith gives birth to another child- Eliot Carter Cushing McMichael. A lively boy, he is the spitting image of his father. Their house in Detroit is warm and welcoming and they are known as a cornerstone in their community, with doors open to all those who need a place at the dinner table. Edith turns no one away, even when they are dirty and in need of rest. She instead draws them a bath and draws from the cache of clothing donated by neighbours to give them something clean to wear, promising to wash their clothing for them to pick up the next day. She always follows through and many of these people, most often young men, come by again when they have nowhere left to turn. When they find work and their lives are more stable, they return with a new set of clothes to add to Edith's guest closet.

Charlotte and Eliot grow up thinking this is entirely normal, and until one of Charlotte's classmates ask her, when she is ten, just why it is their mother and father take in ragamuffins off the street for supper. Neither child has ever thought to ask why the Cushings are known for their hospitality to all souls, including the wayward ones. For them, it has just been the way things are in their household.

Thomas, ever watchful, sees something change in his daughter's eyes when she realizes that this is not how most people live. That most people might, if they are feeling particularly generous, give a few pennies to a beggar or bring him a bit of bread, but they will not open their homes to them. After school, she tells her seven year old brother that their family is odd.

"And that's why- nobody else has drifting labourers at their supper table every night."

"But why not?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well where else are they going to find something to eat?"

Charlotte cannot answer him, "I suppose we just have to ask."

"Let's go find Mum."

"No. Papa's not home yet. What if it's not her idea? We wouldn't get an answer. We'll ask them both at once."

This seems to satisfy Eliot, and they wait until they are all gathered for supper around the big table.

"Should we ask now, Lottie?"

"I guess."

Alan hears their whispering, "Ask what?"

"Judith said we're strange. That nobody else has homeless people to supper like we do. And El wants to know why they don't and we do."

Alan looks to Edith, "Would you like to explain this, love?"

"There was a time I knew two siblings no one had ever loved or shown much kindness to. The brother, he was a hardworking young man who wanted so badly to leave his past behind him. His sister was jealous and bitter from the wicked way their own parents had treated them, but she loved him dearly, in her way. They did terrible things to people. But in the end, it was because no one cared for them that they treated others as things to be used and thrown away. And if I can show people who no one else cares for that the world is not so bleak, then I can give them hope that the people I knew never found."

Charlotte thinks for a minute, "Why don't other people do the same thing?"

Alan steps in, "Because they're afraid it's already too late and they would be inviting desperate people into their homes who would do them harm. But we have never had such a problem. One man took some silver candlesticks, but he told us later he sold them to free his children from indentured servitude and pay off his debts. How could we blame him? He brought them here to meet us and they are a lovely family."

"But he stole from us!"

"And what harm came from the loss of candlesticks?"

"None!" Eliot chirps.

"Exactly. They're just candlesticks. We have some very nice things. Your mother and I have worked hard for them. But in the end, they're just things. People matter more than things."

Charlotte picks at her plate, "So you weren't mad?"

"Not really. Upset, yes, but not mad. He could have just asked for help. But he didn't think he could."

"And you'd have given it?"

"Or found others who could help so he had an entire community behind him. We can't be afraid to come together to help each other."

"Did anyone ever come together to help the people in Mum's story?"

Edith shakes her head, "No. No one stepped in while they were children, and no one knew how much trouble they were in as adults."

"What happened to them?"

"They died."

"Oh."

"But that's why we do what we do. Because I can't bear to think of anyone else being so unloved."

Charlotte smiles, "I understand. And I suppose it's a good thing to be the odd family if this is why."

Alan nods, proud, "That's my girl. When kindness is considered odd, wear it as a badge of honour."

Thomas, always hidden, always watching, is proud of her too. And of Alan. He is heartened that he has never once said or done anything that would make Charlotte anything less than his own child.


	7. Chapter 7

Life in the Cushing-McMichael house is comfortable and lively Christmas of 1918. The war is over. Eliot, fascinated by the rows of soldiers marching through the streets in celebration, has asked for tin soldiers. He is 13 and wants to be a hero, just like the doughboys. Edith has gently tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. So there are tin soldiers in his stocking come Christmas morning.

Charlotte, a beautiful, bold girl of 16, has only one thing she wants for Christmas and she knows it isn't something she can get in a stocking. She wants the boys to stop following her on the way home from school. They don't frighten her, but they do irritate her, and if there is any one thing that Charlotte despises, it is being irritated by someone else's inconsiderate actions. Her stocking contains a hair stick shaped like a sword that she twists up in to her bun as soon as she sees it. She likes the idea of being a bit menacing. Ever since she pummeled the boy who touched her rear while she crossed the street in front of the school, she has had a reputation for being wild, and she quite likes it. Her father has encouraged it, to some degree, and taught her how to fight.

Edith sits with the children while Alan makes breakfast. She does not know how many more of these holidays she will have with both of them. Charlotte is nearly old enough to set out on her own and soon there will be further studies at a university and weeks away from home at a time. There is a mischief, a curiosity, about the girl that reminds her of Thomas- of the moments he was working on his mining machine, the head of steam building with this enthusiasm and his laughter when something worked. She laughs like him, too. There is a pure joy of discovery that she basks in and seeks out. There are days when Edith wonders if Charlotte will set out for the far reaches of the world some day, never to return.

There is a pile of post on the end table that she has neglected over the celebrations of Christmas. She absentmindedly sifts through it. There are a few holiday cards, a note from Alan's mother that he has already read once, and one from Mr Ferguson. She opens this one.

_Mrs McMichael,_

_I have been contacted by The British Clay Mining Corporation. They are interested in purchasing Allerdale Hall. The contract they have proposed is enclosed, along with my proposals to make the deal more favourable to you. I would recommend travel to England to assure that their interest is legitimate._

_Best wishes for the holidays._

She looks over the other documents and then tucks them back into the envelope. There will be time for business later. Alan calls from the kitchen that there are latkes ready and Eliot cheers, abandoning his soldiers. Charlotte laughs and chases after him.

"Coming, Edith?"

"In a moment."

"You'd best be quick or there won't be any left!"

She sets the envelope on the endtable, "Well, Thomas, I hope you're resting well and there are no more secrets in the clay."

Once the room is empty, Thomas slips the letter from the table and reads over the documents. Mining. His clay. He smiles and shakes his head. Someone is interested in making Edith rich beyond measure, the family cared for long into the future. He was right. His clay was good. And this is the best Christmas present he could have hoped for.

A few days later, Edith writes back to Mr Ferguson to enter negotiations for the sale of Allerdale Hall.

They are ready to sign papers in the spring and Edith prepares to return to England. Alan closes his practice for Easter week and beyond and they set sail. The weather worries him- steamship travel has seemed less safe since 1912. But the weather is clear and there are no icebergs. They land in Southampton and travel by train to London. Mr Ferguson is waiting for them there. Alan takes the children to the British Library and the museums while Edith prepares paperwork. The mine company solicitor asks to meet at Allerdale Hall to discuss the house and property. Edith hesitates, but because she does not want to hold up the sale, she agrees to briefly meet there and then to conduct business in the nearby village.

The carriage stops at the gate to the property. She requests that they go no further.

"We'll have to take down the manor house, of course. Do you know anything of its construction?"

"The mines are under the house. The elevator led from the cellars to the attic. And the walls ooze clay. So does the floor. The house looks as though it bleeds."

"That's morbid, ma'am."

"And to think, you don't know the stories and you never lived there."

"You're sure you don't want to clear it out?"

"Absolutely."

"Then let's retire to someplace warm to finish this deal."

From the library window, a black figure watches the carriage ride away from the house. She knows who is in it. She knows the house will soon end. She wonders how, as a place-bound ghost, she will continue to exist once there is no more place to be bound to. She wonders if the house has a ghost, too, and if she will simply inhabit the ghost-house for all eternity.

While Edith, Alan, Mr Ferguson, and the solicitor for The British Clay Mining Corporation discuss the final details of stocks and contracts, Charlotte pulls Eliot aside.

"Come on, let's sneak back to the creepy house."

"Lottie, come now, we'd be in terrible trouble when they found out."

"Oh, they'll be at this for hours, El! We'll be back before they even finish."

"It takes hours to ride out there!"

"It'll be fine. Come on- where's your sense of adventure, soldier boy?"

"Don't call me that."

"Soldier boy. Playing with your little tin men...you're not brave enough to explore the collapsing house, how are you going to go to war?"

"The hope is not to have to go to war."

"No, the hope is to be brave enough to go when you have to. Go with me. We'll build you some courage."

He throws up his hands, "Fine! Better I go with you than you end up falling through the floor and dying in the clay."

She claps without making noise and grabs his hand, tugging him out of the room. It only takes a few moments to hire horses and ride off the same direction as the carriage carried them. When Allerdale Hall grows out of the mist, she feels a thrill in her chest and looks over to Eliot.

"Feeling brave, dear brother?"

"Wary. There's something here I don't like. How is Mum connected to this place again?"

"She owns it."

"But how?"

"Oh El, always with the questions! I don't think that matters, really. She won't soon, anyhow."

"I think she lived here."

"Nonsense, Mum was born and raised in Buffalo. Papa, too. So how would she have lived in a rickety old house in England with no roof?"

"Maybe it had a roof then."

"Well it certainly doesn't now. Shall we go in?"

"I don't like this, Lottie."

She rides over to the rusting hulk on the front lawn and ties her horse to a piece of the machinery that seems stable, "I wonder what this thing was."

"It looks like some sort of steam shovel. Didn't Mum say there was a mine under the house? Maybe it's for pulling up the clay."

"Maybe. Don't fall in the hole. Let's go look in the house!"

From the library window, Lucille watches. The front door groans open as the children enter. She glides to meet them.

Negotiations finish a half an hour after the children leave the village. Edith and Alan look for them and are beginning to worry when the postmaster approaches them.

"Ma'am, are you looking for your children?"

"Have you seen them?"

"They hired horses and rode out of town half an hour ago."

"Ready ours without delay," Alan orders.

"Did they say where they were going?"

"No, Ma'am, but I can hazard a guess."

Edith sighs, "So can I. And that terrifies me."

"Shall we organize a rescue party?"

"No. There's no one living at the house. I think we can manage."

The postmaster nods, "Right. But you should know there are rumours that the living aren't who you should be worrying about at Allerdale Hall." He sends a boy for horses, "If you're not back in a reasonable amount of time for retrieving wayward young people, we'll come riding."

The boy returns from the stables; Alan mounts his horse, but Edith turns to the postmaster, "Kerosene. I need a lot of it. Could you send someone after us with a cart?" He nods. She is soon ready to ride. Alan gives her a quizzical look. She wonders if it is possible to kill a ghost as she spurs her ride forward. He wonders what she is thinking. And the postmaster sends the boy to find kerosene and someone who wants to ride for Allerdale Hall.

"El, look at that staircase! This place must have been beautiful once." Charlotte stands in awe of her surroundings, light streaming down from the hole in the roof from the sunny day it does not shield them from.

The door slams shut behind them and Eliot jumps, "Maybe. But now it's probably going to fall on our heads and kill us."

"No, it won't kill you. At least I don't think it will."

Eyes wide, Charlotte and Eliot turn toward the kitchen- there is a woman standing beside it, her skin black, a turquoise velvet dress draped on her skeletal body, "Who are you?" Charlotte asks.

The woman laughs, "Lucille Sharpe. Welcome to Allerdale Hall."

Eliot wonders how it is that her face still looks somewhat human, even if a bit gaunt and the wrong colour, when her fingers are very obviously bones.

A man fades into view striding from under the balcony; he flickers a little in the light streaming from the lack of roof, "Don't touch them."

"Oh, Thomas! You've returned! Come now, meet our guests."

"I know you know who they are. You're not happy to see them."

Her face hardens, "You stop, Thomas. You've always made me look like the wicked one. And you've always let me take blame. But you...you're the one who ruined it for us."

He turns briefly to Eliot and Charlotte, "Run. Run and don't come back."

Charlotte shakes her head, "No. I don't see why we should. It's our family's property."

Lucille's anger rises, "Yours? You little cretin, it's our house, not yours! We've been here our entire lives!"

"Well by my estimation, you're rather dead and the dead don't have property rights."

Eliot tugs on her arm, "Come on, Lottie. I don't want to be killed by ghosts today."

"Will you stop that? Let go of me."

He backs toward the door, "Fine. But we're leaving now."

"You're just scared."

"Well if you haven't noticed, we're talking to dead people! That's not exactly reassuring!"

Lucille shrugs, "I don't see why it wouldn't be. You could join us."

"No thank you, miss, I don't plan on being dead any time soon."

Thomas places himself between Lucille and the children, "Lucille, stay away from them. They don't know anything of our lives."

"How can you be so certain? She probably told them everything."

"No. Rest. They are just curious. Natural explorers."

"Told us what?" Charlotte asks.

"They really don't know?"

"Correct."

"And what do they know of you?"

"Nothing."

"And she thinks...?"

"Don't say it. Let them stay as they are. Innocent to all this." Lucille grins, "Please, don't."

"Little Charlotte...didn't you ever wonder why you looked nothing like your father? Why your hair is dark as crow's feathers? Why your cheeks are shaped differently than your mother's?"

"No."

"Oh come now, you have to have wondered."

"No. Not at all. I haven't ever met my mother's parents. They're dead. Who knows what they looked like?"

"That's not where it comes from."

"Stop this." Thomas attempts to push her back towards the kitchen, but she drops through the floor and reappears by the stairs.

"You're looking at your father."

Someone pounds on the door.

"It's stuck," Edith says, "Open this door!"

Alan throws his shoulder into it, "Maybe the weather..."

"No, that's not it. You know it. The door was open just a little when we rode by. Now it's closed tight."

"Mum! We're in here!" Eliot calls.

"Lucille, open the door," Thomas walks toward her, but again, she disappears. This time, she is on the balcony, "Oh, let them figure it out. It's not locked."

"No, but you're doing something to it."

"How? I'm up here. We aren't magic. Just very fast. I can't be doing something to the door."

"Open it."

"You. If you want to let them in so badly, you open it."

Thomas walks by Charlotte, whose eyes are locked on him, studying his face, his movements, "Excuse me, Miss Charlotte."

When he arrives beside Eliot, he grabs the handle and yanks with all his strength. The door yields.

"Is it true?" Eliot asks.

Thomas looks to Edith, "May I?"

Edith looks between her children, sees Lucille on the landing, and knows something is not right, "What was said?"

"This man is Charlotte's father. The lady said it. Is it true?"

"Yes. It is."

"Who is he?"

"My first husband."

Eliot tries for a small smile, "I'd ask what happened, but I can hazard a guess- he died?"

She laughs at his attempted joke, "That's the short of it, yes...but it's so much more complicated than that. I will tell you on the ride back to London. But right now, I have work to do."

Alan gathers Charlotte and takes her out of the house. Eliot follows. Edith meets a man with a flat wagon on the driveway. On it, there are bales of straw and spouted cans. She directs him to enter and shows him where to pile the bales. Then she takes a can and goes up the rotting stairs.

Lucille stares as she walks across the balcony to the bedroom, "What do you think you're doing?"

"A favour for the mining company." Lucille follows her, Thomas at her heels. Edith uncaps the spout and douses the bed in the liquid. She pours a trail to the dresser and drowns it as well.

"Stop it! Stop!"

Edith shoves by and Lucille reaches for her, but Thomas is there to hold her arms back, "No. You will let her. This ends."

"But I'm bound here! What if it ends me?"

"Then so be it. For both of us."

Edith returns with another can. She pours a trail down the hall and then retrieves a third can. With this one, she douses the bed she slept in. Thomas appears in the doorway. They can both hear Lucille frantic in the other bedroom, pawing at the soaked, rotting bed in a desperate effort to shove the saturated sheets away.

"Even our bed?"

"This never was our bed. The only one we really shared is in the village."

"I'm sorry, Edith."

"I know."

"I'm sorry she told Charlotte. I tried to stop her."

Edith empties the gas can in a trail to the stairs and returns with a fourth, "I am sure you did."

"Please believe me."

She stops by the elevator, "I do."

He nods and returns to the bedroom, sits on the kerosene soaked bed, and wonders what it will be like to burn.

Edith drowns the stairs. The man with the wagon has drenched the straw. They leave as he runs a wick from the straw, a river of kerosene trickling out the front door. She helps him load the empty cannisters on his wagon and Alan lights a match.

"Ready?"

"I was ready nearly seventeen years ago." She pauses, "I'm sorry, Thomas. But if you are to escape it, it can't be here."

Eliot brings the horses from the mining machine. Alan lights the wick. The flame licks its way across the ground, picking up speed as it touches the places where the wick has soaked in kerosene. And then the pool in the middle of the floor lights and the fire races to the stairs, to the straw, and it isn't long before it is shooting out the bedroom windows.

Edith goes to the mining machine and crouches down beside it, "I wish I could take just this piece. It's nothing, really, but it represents so much..."

Alan has her point it out and he tries to reach in to remove the valve, "I'm sorry, but I can't."

She sighs, "That's fine. But it's getting warm and I don't want to go up in flames- there's likely kerosene on my hems."

They mount their horses and ride back to the village. They are met by both the solicitor for The British Clay Mining Corporation and Mr Ferguson.

"You don't need to worry about Allerdale Hall," Edith tells them, "Excuse me, I would like to change." The scent of kerosene wafts from her skirts as she passes.

"What do you mean?" the solicitor asks.

"I lit a fire."

"You what?"

"Burned it down." She looks to the rising plume of black smoke on the horizon, "Well, it's burning presently. It should fall to rubble very shortly. The kerosene will make short work of that."

"But you just sold it!"

"No. I signed a contract to sell it. As Lady Sharpe, I still have the rights to that property until the money is in the bank. That is what we agreed. I could take whatever I wanted or- what was it you said? "Clear it out for sentimental tokens of my ladyship" -whenever I wished. And I liquidated it. Or, rather, turned it to ash. The one piece of sentiment I could have kept is rusted to a mining machine in the yard. You can keep it."

He gapes at cloud of smoke, "That's an intense fire. Look at that... But why? Why not just let us demolish it?"

"Because six people died in that house before I moved in- at least four of them were murdered- the child died of natural causes and I don't know about Baronet Sharpe's father. Thomas was number seven, killed by his sister. Alan and I were to be eight and nine. And I killed Lucille with a shovel to make sure we weren't. Needless to say, there was nothing left there I wanted and I never want to see Allerdale Hall again. Now I have assured it." He stares, horrified, "I hope you aren't a superstitious man."

And with that, Alan guides his family back to the main street so Edith can purchase a new set of clothes before they embark on their trip back to London.


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

 

In the carriage on the way to London, Edith tells the entire story as she lived it. She has not yet read Thomas' diary, so what her own eyes discovered is all she can say, and she leaves out pieces she thinks are too disturbing for the children- the incest, mostly, and the baby. Charlotte is horrified. Eliot has more questions. Edith tells them that they can call on Thomas to answer them once they are back in Detroit.

Eliot cannot wait, though, and when he thinks he is alone in his cabin on the steamship bound for America, he asks, "Can you hear me? Sir Thomas, I mean." Thomas flickers into view in a corner, "So you do watch us."

"Often."

"Why?"

"Because-"

Charlotte bounds into the room from the adjoining cabin, "Mum says-" She stares, "I don't ever want to see you again. Stay away from this family." Thomas' heart sinks and he opens his mouth to speak and closes it again. There is nothing he can say to make anything any better. "Mum says we're meeting for supper in an hour. Don't bring the ghost." She storms out and slams the door.

"Sir Thomas? Are you alright?"

"You mean beyond being dead and recently being in the middle of a housefire?"

"Clearly. She's shaken you."

"You are quite perceptive for such a tender age."

"And you're more complicated than I thought ghosts would be. There's something else here that I don't know, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"Tell me."

"I promised myself that I would earn my way back from my fallen state by acting as a guardian for Edith's family as long is it took for me to find rest."

"And?"

"And my daughter has told me that I am not to do anything of the sort."

"So? You're dead. We can't see you most of the time. Why would her demand stop you?"

"Because it seems wrong to stay when I'm so unwanted."

Eliot thinks for a moment, "I don't know what the future holds. But I don't want to see you again, either, at least not right now. You've done some pretty miserable things. And I'm not certain I want my family seeing you, either. But I think Mum would be glad that there's someone else helping to watch over us. And I think I'd feel comforted, when the time comes, to know someone is watching over my own children. If that is what you have to do to rest in peace, then fine, but stay out of sight unless you feel it is absolutely necessary for us to see you."

Thomas is heartbroken and it shows on his face, but he bows to his young companion, "As you wish, young master McMichael. But if you ever do wish to know me, your mother has my diary." He disappears, returning, at least for a little while, to the pile of rubble that is Allerdale Hall. Even if she is miserable company, at least Lucille wants him. Or she did, at least, until Edith set the house on fire. He's not sure what he will find when he returns. But old habits are hard to break and no matter how angry she has been with him, she has always sought him.


	9. Chapter 9

Thomas does not stay with Lucille for long. While his heart aches for someone to keep him company, it is clear once he has returned to her that she is not what he wants. He wanders the small graveyard and she follows, talking incessantly of what they once were, how he belonged to her, and how it was the only place he will ever belong. And he says nothing in return. He travels to the mines. His mines, as he thinks of them. They are extensive, with equipment much larger than his little steam powered contraption digging up the red clay. She follows him one evening, for he always visits when there is little chance of being seen.

"Oh Thomas, you and your clay...why do you return to this place? The house is gone. I am at your grave. Do you need to be here?"

"It is good clay."

"What?"

"I was right. It was a worthy pursuit, even if I could make nothing of it."

"But no one would give you a chance, my love, so we had to seek other means."

"No, no we did not. We chose unwisely. I chose unwisely. Except for Edith."

"You would hurt me so by bringing her name into our good death?"

"Good death? You consider this a good death?" He gestures to his face, "You drove a knife through my face, _dear_ sister. My final thoughts were prayers that you would not do the same to the only person who saw value in the clay...in me. This was not a good death. A good death would have been decades later by the firelight in my old age, asleep in her bed with the warmth of her body beside me."

"And where am I in this fantasy of yours?"

He pauses, then decides to be entirely honest, "You aren't."

"Why...after all I've done for you!" and she is gone.

Thomas looks once more out over the mine. It will bring Edith and Alan a fortune over the course of their lives. It will ensure their children and their children's children are comfortable and well cared for. It is his gift to them, he thinks- the one way he can repay her for the trauma he made her endure at Allerdale Hall. The only way a dead man is capable of taking care of his family. And it makes him smile, even if just a little.

His family.

He no longer belongs here. There are people in Detroit that he loves dearly, people who will, over time, forget about what he has done. And if they do not, their children never have to know. This realization startles him. They never have to know. Edith and Alan will not tell his story and he doubts Eliot or Charlotte will either. If he is careful, he could just be a ghost, an imaginary friend to the children, a protective spirit waiting and watching. His smile broadens and he laughs to himself. He has a place. An awkward one at the moment, perhaps, but it is somewhere to belong.

He leaves the mine. There is a brick house in Brush Park he needs to visit, a house so full of life and the complete opposite of Allerdale Hall. It is what he has longed for. Lucille will always be rooted to England. Thomas, however, follows his heart and goes home.


	10. Chapter 10

Alan, Edith, Charlotte, and Eliot are happy to return to their own home and eager to return to life as normal. Especially Charlotte, who throws herself into her schoolwork and her friends, trying to forget that her father is not the ever patient, even keeled doctor who opens his doors to the friendless, but instead is a man who married three times for money and let his sister murder his wives. Even when Edith tries to assure her that Thomas loved her dearly, that he grew so much during their short marriage, it does nothing to deter Charlotte from thinking of him as solely a murderer.

Eliot notices the change in his sister and finally confronts her about it, cornering her in her bedroom one evening, "Lottie, you're acting funny ever since England."

"Oh, really? Why do you think that might be?"

"I understand you're upset about your father-"

"He's not my father. He's my...I don't know. Co-creator. But my father is the one I share with you."

"Fine. I understand you're upset about Thomas."

"Aren't you?"

"Why should I be? He's just a ghost. It's not like he's done anything to hurt us. He seemed to be trying to protect us in England."

She stares, her mouth agape, "But he killed three women!"

"Technically, that was Lucille."

"He let her do it?"

"Do you really think he had much choice?"

She stops, "What? Of course he did! Are you mad?"

"No. Not at all. But we know she killed their mother with a cleaver through the skull. Who's to say she wouldn't have done the same to him? She did end up stabbing him to death."

"Mother says she loved him too much."

He scratches his head, "Yeah...about that. I asked questions...to Mother, not to Thomas. And there's a bit more to that than you know."

She tosses herself back on her bed, "Oh lovely. Another family secret."

"Yeah."

"Go on, spill it."

"Apparently sometime in their childhood, she started...um...how do I say this? She started sleeping with him. And not in the sisterly way."

"If this is supposed to endear me to him in any way, you're failing."

"No, hear me out. I don't know what all happened between them, but she says she doesn't think it was something he wanted. And that's why Lucille killed their mother- she found out and threatened to send her away. There are a lot of the pieces of the puzzle missing. Like Thomas' story. But if our mother can look at him and think that there was something even innocent about him...why shouldn't we, too?"

"Because he killed three people, that's why!"

He turned from her and walked back to the door, "You aren't trying to understand this, are you? You don't want to think that maybe it wasn't his idea, that maybe his sister made him do it. But I will. And even if I don't know that I want to see him, I think I'm glad that he is still around, watching over us."

She watches her brother leave and calls after him, "So what, am I just supposed to forgive him?"

Eliot does not return, but hollers from the hall, "Maybe."

She sits up and looks around, "Thomas? Are you here?"

He fades into sight in her armchair, "Yes."

"Even though I said I never wanted to see you again?"

"I had no intention of being seen. Not until you asked."

"Eliot was just here."

"I know. I heard."

She fiddles with her bracelet, "Is it true? That you weren't entirely willing? With the...the..."

"The incest."

"Yes. That."

"Not at first. But when it becomes the only love you know, leaving it is impossible."

"But you had wives."

"I had women she chose for me. And when we were young, she had me promise never to fall in love."

"But what about Mother?"

"Edith was different. I chose her. I broke my promise. Your mother is a remarkable woman. The kindest I have ever known. And she stole my heart."

"So why didn't you leave with her?"

"Because I could not leave Lucille."

"But why not?"

"She knew everything. She could destroy me. Destroy any life I built for myself. I would be hanged for murder, Edith shamed by the charges against me. Charlotte...please. Do not think I had any easy choices. Everything I did, I did wrong because there was no other way I knew to do it. Your mother was the first hope I had. And even then, I acted too late. I have much to atone for. And that is why I am here."

She watches him intently, "I'm sorry your life was terrible. But I still don't want to see you if at all possible. Not yet, at least. I'm happy you know how wrong you were, but...I don't want to think about being the daughter of someone who thought it was fine to kill people in order to finance a mining machine. That's horrible."

"It is. Imagine what it is like to live with such a secret. And to continue in death with no rest because of it."

"I don't have much pity. But that could be because I don't understand how you got into such a mess in the first place. Why did you ever agree to such a terrible thing?"

"Love makes monsters of us all."

She shakes her head, "No, no it doesn't. That's not love. Love doesn't ask someone to become a monster for it. Love is...well haven't you ever read the biblical verse? 'Love is patient, love is kind'...all that?"

"No."

"Oh. Well love is what my parents have. Not asking your beloved to lure someone to their death. That's using someone, not love."

"I don't think Lucille and I were capable of any other love but that of desperation and survival."

"But that's not really love! If she loved you, she wouldn't have made you stay in that stupid hall in the first place! Go, see the world, start over in another city and work your way up...you could have done any number of things to leave and yet you insisted on staying with the mines and that decrepit house! How is it love to mire someone in place and smother them under soggy red clay?"

Thomas has no answer. All he knows is that whatever was left of Lucille after their parents' brutality, that part of her desperately needed him. It was all she had and his love was the only love she thought she was capable of keeping. He did wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if they had moved to London, abandoned the house, and lived apart. Would she have ever learned that she was worth the attention of others, that she was witty and charming? Or did the repeated insistence by their father that all girls who do not become nuns become whores have taken too deep a hold, permanently scarring her? Would any touch from a lover have met with revulsion and guilt? He knows he will never know the answers, but he likes to think that she would have grown apart from him, found herself, and bloomed. It is a nice daydream, even if he never thought of it while living.

"You're quiet." Charlotte interrupts his thoughts.

"I'm thoughtful."

"That may be so. But you never answered my question."

"I know. Because I do not know. But what I do know is that our childhood was horrific. That we never knew the love of our parents. We did what we had to in order to survive. And we did not know how to live in this world when we were released to it. I am sorry, Charlotte. I cannot satisfy your curiosity. I cannot tell you that there is one way of love and it is beautiful and innocent. What I can tell you is what I found with your mother changed me to the very core of my being. Our one night together was something so unlike anything I had ever experienced. I have never felt such joy and peace as I did with her. Child...you were born of love. Genuine, intense, soul-shattering love. No matter what you think of me, I hope you will remember that." He fades from sight.

She stares at the chair. She stands and walks a few steps towards it, then stops. She can't bring herself to say she is sorry. But maybe, she thinks, in time she will.


	11. Chapter 11

Thomas watches from a distance. He watches as Edith repeatedly picks up his diary, opens it, and sets it aside, unread. He watches the children grown and bloom. Charlotte takes an interest in engineering and fights her way into a university. Eliot studies medicine and enlists, preparing for a career as a military surgeon. They both marry in 1927 in a joint wedding full of laughter and friendship. Eliot's wife, Maria Lee, is a bubbly young woman, the daughter of German immigrants. Her parents own a bakery and make the wedding cake. Charlotte marries Harold Walter Strong, a quiet man who works at the soaring Michigan Central Depot.

Their first children are born days apart. Anne Victoria Strong and May Ellen McMichael cuddle together in their cradle when they first meet at their grandmother's house. When they wake, Edith has Alan place the children both on her chest and they nestle against her, bobbing their tiny heads, nuzzling each other. She wonders if Thomas is watching and she hopes he is. He has helped her to create something beautiful in Charlotte and now in Anne.

Thomas wants to make himself known to the children, but does not wish to risk Charlotte's anger. While they visit Edith and Alan's home, he appears beside the cradle. May Ellen is asleep. Anne, with eyes bright and dark curls framing her tiny face, reaches for him and gurgles. He lets her grasp his finger, bends to kiss her and her cousin, and then steps back. When he leaves, she cries. He wishes he could stay, but her mother is coming.

"Annie, I'm right here, little love...what frightened you? Were you startled that your mum wasn't in sight?" Anne coos and nestles into her chest as she sits in Edith's rocking chair, "Don't you worry, little one, I'm not going very far without you."

Edith tiptoes into the room as Charlotte nurses Anne. She sits beside the cradle and watches May Ellen.

She only speaks when Anne has fallen asleep, "I remember when you were this small. Your father had to leave to treat a patient in Ann Arbor. We had a visitor. A ghostly one."

"I don't want to talk about him right now."

"But he was so kind...so in love with you. Some days I wish he would have survived, even if I never trusted him the same way, so that you children could know him. He was brilliant. I see sparks of him in you and it delights me. Such wonder at mechanical things...and such an aptitude for invention. An intense, consuming curiosity. Traits you also share with Alan. I am, it seems, attracted to highly intelligent men."

"Mother, I think you forget the darker side of his nature."

"No. I can never forget what happened. I yet limp from it and I see her in my nightmares. But those few moments he had with you when you were so tiny...they changed things."

"I still don't know if I want to see him."

"You don't have to know. Just accept that he is here, and that somehow, the dead sometimes still feel great love for those they have left behind."

"Does he know what love is?"

"Of course. I think we all do, somehow, even if we never receive it."

Charlotte rocks Anne and stares at her mop of dark hair, "Is that why you cried? Because you saw a ghost?" But Anne has fallen asleep and says nothing.

Two years pass and two more babies arrive- this time, the boys. Dixon Martin Strong and Alan Bartholomew McMichael. Once again, they meet at Edith and Alan's house. This time, Alan gets to hold them both first, curious little bundles laying on his broad chest while the girls run wild through Edith's dining room. She doesn't care. Their laughter is light itself to her.

Thomas cannot help but want to see Charlotte's children and for them to see him at least once. While he would like to meet Eliot's family as well, he honours his request to stay unseen. While Charlotte washes the dishes, he appears to Dixon. The child cries. He still kisses him, fading quickly so he will calm. Dixon quiets as soon as Thomas has vanished. Anne toddles over and plops down on the floor beside the cradle. She stuffs a tiny plush horse through the bars and into his flailing little fists. He pulls it to his mouth and sucks on its nose. She giggles.

Charlotte returns to the children and smiles, "Thank you, Annie, for keeping your brother happy." She returns to the kitchen.

Anne looks, very serious, at her brother's face, trying to make eye contact, "Baby see him, too. He nice. Plays tea. No tell."

Dixon sucks on the horse. She shrugs. He doesn't know words, so she thinks her secret friend is safe.


	12. Chapter 12

In 1933, Thomas breaks his promise to not speak to Eliot. Alan Bartholomew drowns in a pond while visiting Maria's parents. When her father runs to the house calling for help, they know something terrible has happened. Maria cannot stop screaming. May, only five, does not understand why her brother cannot wake up. Her grandmother has to explain to her what has happened and the girl is devastated. Eliot retreats to the barn, unable to fathom what has happened. He finds his father-in-law's cache of moonshine and decides he has no reason not to forcibly purge his brain from its thoughts.

In Detroit, Edith knows something has happened. She calls Charlotte, who assures her that there is nothing wrong in her household. She does not know how to get in touch with Eliot. Distressed, she sits down in front of the fireplace and sends Alan to make coffee.

"Thomas, what has happened? Why does it feel like my heart is broken and I don't know why?"

Thomas appears in the chair across from her, "I should not be the one to tell you this."

"Please."

He leans forward and reaches for her hand; she takes his- it is cold, "Edith...little Alan is dead."

All colour drains from her face, "No...no..." He bows his head and she knows it is true, "What happened?"

"He drowned in his grandfather's pond."

"Couldn't you save him?"

"No. Some things I cannot prevent. Death did not make me a guardian angel-only a watcher and an apparition."

Alan returns with coffee to find Edith with tears streaming down her face still holding Thomas' hand, "What is it?" Thomas nods and fades. Alan crouches in front of her, "Edith?"

"I was right. Little Alan drowned." They both break down, the coffee forgotten.

When Thomas returns to the farm, Alan is wrapped in a blanket resting in a maple box built for another purpose. Maria holds May and they sit, silent, sobbing, while her mother makes arrangements and her grandfather tries to convince himself that this is not his fault. Thomas seeks out Eliot.

He is fairly drunk when Thomas sits on the haybale beside him and makes himself visible, "Are you a hallucination, or actually the ghost?"

"Ghost."

"Then I'm not drunk enough."

"You'll be dead if you drink enough of that to see me when I'm not here."

"That's the point."

Thomas stops the jug as he raises it to his lips, "No."

"Why do you get to tell me no? You're dead! You never lost a child!"

Thomas bows his head, "Yes, I did. He was only a few days old, but still...a few days is enough time to fall in love."

Eliot lowers the jug, "She never told me that."

"She doesn't often talk about that part of my story. It is one small mercy that she leaves me."

"Which wife?"

"None."

"Oh?"

"Did she ever tell you of Lucille's hold on me? Her metaphorical enchantment?"

"You seem to forget how drunk I am. Cryptic isn't going to work."

"Did your mother tell you the price I paid for Lucille's protection?"

"Oh. Yes. I asked- things needed to make sense."

"The child was hers."

"Did she kill him?"

Thomas wants to be defensive of Lucille, a habit he still has not broken, but he reminds himself that it would be a natural conclusion to come to, given what Eliot knows, "No. He was...born wrong. Because...well, yes. You can guess why. But he was beautiful, none the less."

"Did you want to rip your heart out when he died?"

"Yes."

"And how did you deal with it?"

"I wasn't given the chance to."

"Oh."

"Don't follow him. For the sake of your wife. Your daughter. Your mother. Your sister. Stay. Go be with them. Scream, punch the earth that will soon embrace him. Curse the sky. Do whatever you must to survive, but do survive. If not for your own sake, then for theirs. And when you are ready, then breathe again for yourself."

Eliot stares at the jug, "You're fairly wise, for a dead man."

"Well, death puts quite a fine perspective on things."

"Oh god, I've got to tell Mum."

"She knows. She knew before she asked what was wrong."

"You told her?"

"Yes."

"How is she..."

"She is devastated. So is your father. But they are waiting for you when you need to seek refuge in their home."

"I don't know what to do."

"There really is only one thing you can do. Nothing will bring him back. We stay dead."

"And what's that?"

"Keep living."

They bring the child back to Detroit. Edith and Alan have a family plot in Elmwood Cemetery and they gather amongst the rolling hills to lay him to rest. Thomas watches from a distance. He stays unseen for all but one moment, when Eliot looks particularly lost, when he flickers into view and nods. Eliot takes a deep breath and returns his focus to the grave. Charlotte and Edith take the children back to their grandmother's house. Alan stays with Eliot. Maria's parents sit with her. After an hour of deep grieving, Eliot wipes his eyes and looks around him. The sky is blue. The sun is bright. And there are birds singing. There is a stream running through the cemetery that he can hear faintly.

He turns to Alan, "A wise man gave me some advice- he'd lost a son, too- before he knew Mum." Alan gets his hint and waits for him to continue, "There's just one thing we can do about all this."

"Yes?"

"Keep living."

Alan hugs him, "He's right."


	13. Chapter 13

As Anne grows, she turns inward, a quiet child with few friends. She is the opposite of her mother, who laughs loud with her friends on the wide deck overlooking the garden. Other than her cousin, Anne does not like to play with the other children that find their way into the Strong house. And when her second brother is born, she is six and left largely to her own devices. The little boy, named Harold after his father, arrives too early and is weak. Because of this, he is rarely left alone. Thomas fears he will not be able to meet the boy before he dies. When Charlotte is bathing and his father is working, Anne watches him. Thomas, seeing his opportunity, appears to them both.

"I know you. You've been here before."

"Yes."

"Are you a ghost?"

"Yes."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I want to meet your new brother."

"He's sick."

"I know." Thomas kisses the little boy's forehead as he sleeps, "He's a beautiful little boy, just like you and Dexter."

"You watch us, too?"

"Yes."

"Does Mom know?"

"I think so. But she does not want to see me."

"Oh. What's your name?"

"Thomas."

"Is my brother going to die like Alan did?"

He looks at her earnest, innocent eyes and wants so badly to lie, "Possibly. But the future is something you cannot yet know." Technically, it is true. She can't. He could. He hasn't looked, but he knows just from watching the child that he won't survive long.

Anne nods, "Dex wasn't born yet when Alan died. But he's worried, too."

"I cannot stay long, Miss Anne. Know that I do my best to watch over your family. I cannot stop death. But I can offer what little comfort I have to you when it comes."

"Who are you?"

"Just a friend of your grandmother's from long ago." He is gone.

"Who are you talking to in here, Anne?"

"My imaginary friend."

"You have one?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Where is Dexter?"

"Napping."

"And Harold?"

"He looks alright."

Charlotte picks him up and he curls against her chest, "Come up on my lap and you can hold him."

Anne climbs up and cuddles with Charlotte, "I won't get that long to hold him, will I?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Because he's always sick. And my imaginary friend thinks so, too."

Charlotte doesn't like to think about losing her youngest, but she knows in her heart their time is short. She keeps him on her chest in the hopes that her heart can keep his beating. Anne learns to take care of Dexter while Charlotte keeps Harold close. And late at night, when there is no one else awake, Thomas takes care of Anne. He sits on the edge of her bed and rests a hand on her back while she cries into her pillow and he waits until she has fallen asleep to leave.

Once she is asleep, he checks on her parents and watches as they curl little Harold between them. He remembers this feeling. Like them, he had only a short time with his son beside him, but the worried looks on their faces as they listen to his breathing falter in his sleep are painfully familiar. He knows this dread, this anticipation of loss, intimately well. When he can, he kisses Charlotte's forehead while she sleeps and whispers to her gentle comforts. There is little to say that will take away the edge and the hurt when it happens, but he hopes she knows she is not alone and that little Harold knows how dearly she loves him.

Anne doesn't say much when he watches her at night, but one night as he tucks the blankets around her after she has drifted off, he hears her whisper, "I love you, Thomas." He kisses her forehead and disappears, deeply moved. He checks on Charlotte and takes his own rest. He says nothing about it the following night.

Harold is one month old and faring poorly. His breathing is laboured. They know he will die soon and Thomas appears to Edith to tell her to prepare herself. Alan readies the car.

Charlotte tells Anne to say goodbye instead of just goodnight. Her father tucks her and Dexter into bed and then goes to spend the remaining hours with his small son. Dexter crawls out of his bed and into Anne's. She cuddles with him and he cries himself to sleep. He does not entirely understand what is happening. Anne does. While she has not yet turned seven for the year, she remembers Alan's death. Dying is when there's nothing left to play with. She doesn't quite understand why, though, and this is frightening. She tries to keep from crying so she can comfort Dexter, but once he is asleep, she can't stop her tears.

"Thomas? Are you here?"

He appears on the edge of her bed, "Of course."

"Why does Harry have to die?"

"His body does not work the way it should- there are parts that did not form right. Because of this, he will die."

"But why...why when he just got here?"

He sighs, "I don't know. But I can tell you he knows he is dearly loved."

"Is it scary to die?"

"No. It wasn't for me. I don't think it will be for Harry. My own son passed quietly in my arms."

Anne notices something change in his voice, his quiet reassurance giving way to great sadness, "Oh. Was he as little as Harry?"

"Smaller. But that does not change how tragic such a loss is."

"Do you think they know what's happening to them?"

"I don't know." The conversation is hard to have, but Thomas stays, his heart heavy, because he knows Anne needs him. And he thinks she needs to see that even after all this time, it still hurts him. He does not want her to believe she has to move on and forget because she only knew Harold for a short time.

"But what do you think?"

"Maybe. Maybe it is something he is looking forward to, since he will no longer struggle to breathe."

"He sounds really bad."

"He does."

"Will he die tonight?"

"I can't say for certain, but I think he might."

"Will he be a ghost?"

"No. He will rest."

"Are you sure?"

"Fairly. Ghosts have work left to do. Or they are desperate not to leave. I think he will be at peace."

"Oh."

He hears footsteps and nods to her, blinking out of sight.

Her father enters the room and crouches down beside the bed, "Are you awake, Annie?"

"Yes."

"Sweetheart...Harry's gone."

"He died?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"Do you want to come out with us? See him one last time?" She is scared and shakes her head as tears roll down her cheeks, "Oh, Annie... He sits where Thomas had been and leans down to hold her. She sobs on his shoulder. She has no idea how long it is before she hears a knock on the front door and then her grandmother's voice in the front room and then her mother's wails as the full weight of her heartbreak settles in.

In the morning, Edith tells Dexter what has happened and he throws himself on the ground screaming. She sits beside him and holds him the best she can while he cries and tries to shove her away. He sobs until he retches and she takes him to the bath to clean up and rest. Late in the day, they journey to Elmwood.

They stay the night with Edith and Alan. Dexter falls asleep in his grandfather's arms, Harold with Eliot in the den. Alan carries the boy into the chidren's bedroom and tucks him in. Then he seeks out Anne. She is curled up with May under the stairs behind the lace curtain hung to make a reading nook. May has fallen asleep. He carries her upstairs followed by a sleepy, staggering Anne. He hears a commotion downstairs as he is tucking her in.

"I have to go make sure everything is alright below. Get some rest, love."

"Don't go...I'm scared."

"I need to make sure everyone's safe, darling. But I'll be back."

"But I need you."

"I know."

"Can my imaginary friend stay with me instead?"

"I don't see why not."

"He never comes around when there are other grownups. I think he's shy."

"Ah. Well. I'll go then."

"Call him first."

"What is his name?"

"Thomas."

Alan pauses, "Oh. I see. Well then...Thomas? Are you here?"

He appears, "As always."

"You watch them?"

"My penance is not yet paid. And Anne has needed someone while her parents have been distracted."

"Eliot said you helped him through little Alan's death."

"I did."

"Thank you." Thomas nods his thanks, "I'll be back after I see what has happened downstairs."

"Charlotte is having a very very difficult evening. Edith could use your help."

Alan rises and Thomas takes his place on the bed, "Little Annie, how are you faring?"

"I feel like throwing up."

"Do you need to?"

"No. But I feel like it."

"Ah. I see."

Alan leaves them, strangely comforted by the fact that Anne's other grandfather has taken such an interest in her and is so gently talking to her, listening. He had been worried about the children Charlotte and Harold had been leaving to their own distractions while caring for the baby.

Downstairs, Alan discovers just how understated Thomas' description of events is. Charlotte has smashed a small end table and is sitting on the floor howling in grief. Edith crouches beside her, but every time she tries to touch her daughter, she is shoved aside. Alan kneels in front of her and tries to hold her, but he, too, is pushed away. She is trying to find a reason for the baby's death, babbling about the homeless man in the park who might have been sick and the funny oyster she had eaten while pregnant. They try to reassure her, gently dismissing each accusation.

But then she seems to have thought of the perfect reason, "Thomas. He must have done it. Maybe she told him to poison him. That's it...it all fits. It all fits. It all fits..."

Edith shakes her head, "No. You're telling yourself this to make yourself feel better, but that's not what happened."

"But how do you know? Have you seen him?"

"Yes, I have. He was devastated when Alan died. And he knows what it is to lose a child."

"He's a murderer, I doubt he cared- he had to have done it. There's no other reason that makes sense!"

"Lottie," Alan says, "You're looking for reasons when there isn't one. He was a beautiful child, but something was wrong with his body that none of us could change. I think his lungs just weren't formed right."

"But the tea! It make breathing difficult, didn't it?"

"Not like this. Stop, Lottie. It's over."

She screams and falls against her mother, sobbing. Alan wraps his arms around both of them. Harold and Eliot join them.

Upstairs, Thomas has heard everything. It would have been hard not to. He thanks the heavens that Anne was already fast asleep by the time Charlotte started shouting. All three children are cuddled together in the same bed and he tucks the blankets around them and kisses all three on their foreheads. He wishes he had been given the chance to raise his own children, but wishing does little good. He fades from sight as footsteps approach.

Alan enters the room and closes the door behind him, "Are you still here?"

"Yes."

"Show yourself." He does. "Did you?"

The accusation hurts and Thomas' heart sinks, "Of course not. But no one would believe that."

"Edith does. And so do I."

"Your faith in me is astounding."

"Edith believes very strongly in second chances. And I suppose this is yours."

"And you? Do you believe me only because she does?"

"No. I know what Eliot's told me. And that you know this pain yourself."

"I would never harm this family. Please don't ask me to leave."

"I won't. That would hurt Anne. And you have found a place here. Take care of her tonight. At least until one of her parents can come up. I have to go take care of my children and my wife."

"And yourself. Do not forget to take the time to grieve."

"You never did?"

"No, and that only made things far worse. You cannot give yourself to them if you haven't taken care of your own needs."

"Thank you." He leaves.

Thomas sits, very still, all night. When the children wake in the morning, he is once again unseen. Anne looks for him.

"What're you looking for, Annie?" Dexter asks.

"Nothing. I thought I saw a mouse."

May tumbles out of bed and tugs Dexter with her, "Come on, let's get breakfast. We forgot supper last night."

"I didn't forget," Anne protests, "I just didn't feel like eating."

"Well you need to eat now. Come on."

Dexter brushes his shirt down over his stomach and stretches, "It's going to be too quiet without Harry."

Anne hugs him as he starts crying, "I know. But that's how things are now, I guess. I love you, Dex."

He sobs; May joins them, sandwiching the smaller boy between the girls, "I know it's hard. My brother's gone, too. But we'll take care of you."

Thomas, still present, but quiet in the corner, wants to embrace all three children, to protect them from whatever will come and to let them hold onto their innocence as long as they can. But he knows some of this is already gone, for they have now discovered that they are not immune to death.

Alan has heard their movements and he opens the bedroom door to find them hugging one another in a heap on the floor, "Well this is one way to find your grandchildren..." He can't help but smile, "Come now, why are you squishing Dex?"

"He needed hugs," May answers.

"Well I think he's had enough," Alan picks him up and the boy cuddles into him, "Your grandmother's making pancakes. It's a new day." He leaves, and May trots after him dragging a doll.

Anne lingers for a moment, "I know you're here somewhere. And that you stayed the night. I can't see you, but I just know. Thank you." She pauses for a moment, "I wish you were alive so you could come have pancakes, too."

May calls to her from the hall, "Are you coming, slow poke? I'll use all the maple syrup if you don't hurry!"

"Don't you dare, Miss May!" She runs out of the room.

Thomas can't help but laugh to himself. These children are delightful and he loves them fiercely. And not a trace of madness in them. Little by little, he is coming to accept that he and Lucille might have been like this in a different childhood as well. It gives him an odd sort of hope.


	14. Chapter 14

The family leans on one another in the thin times as the Depression worsens. Edith's doors are always open and Alan donates more and more of his time to caring for his neighbours. Though his speciality is in the eye, he finds himself more and more a general practitioner, his medical training in need amongst their neighbours. They repay him in whatever they can, sometimes in vegetables from the garden, sometimes in time spent repairing clothes for the Cushing-McMichaels' guest closet, and sometimes only in the promises to pass along the kindness in better times. While they have certainly been hit hard by the financial problems, there is no slowing in the payments from The British Clay Mining Company. Eliot and Maria decide to move out of the city to her parents' farm while Charlotte and Harold bring their family to Edith and Alan's brick house in Brush Park. While there are times when Charlotte does not understand Edith and Alan's generosity, she knows it is something her children, now nine and eleven, need to see in person. The house is warm and inviting, as it always has been.

The first time a pair of young men they have never seen before show up for supper, Anne and Dexter do not understand why they are there. But they know better than to ask too many questions. The two men are grateful to be somewhere warm and when Edith sends them up to bathe and change before they sit down to the table, they can hardly express their thanks. They are quiet at the table at first, until Alan's gently prodding questions draw them out. After this, they joke with the family and laugh along with them. By the time they leave, they are comfortable with the family. Edith tells them to come by tomorrow to pick up their clothes. Alan clears the table with Harold's help. Charlotte takes the children up to their grandmother.

She has their clothes laid out on the floor, "These are just a mess...Lottie, will you get a notepad? I need you to write this down." After she has a pencil in hand, Edith continues, "Brown trousers, torn at the knee. Crotch seam stressed. Pull in the seat. Hem worn. Belt loop missing. Light shirt. Torn at the elbows. Seams under the arms open. Hem missing. Collar disintegrating. Are you catching all this?"

"Yes, Mum."

"Good. The list will be extensive. How is your sewing?"

"Decent."

"And the children?"

"Dexter's is less than ideal. Anne may be able to help. She can darn socks."

"Oh good. We have a lot of work ahead of us. I hope your father has the washtub ready."

Anne and Dexter watch the cataloguing of the needed repairs and the care with which Edith handles the garments. She loads them into a basket and takes them to the wash. A few hours later, they are drying in front of the fire and the children are tucked in bed.

Dexter turns to Anne, "Why do you think they do it? Why do they take care of people they don't know like this?"

"My friend Lorna says they've been doing it for years. She thought Grandpa must be a minister to be so kind."

"Did you tell her he isn't?"

"She didn't believe me."

"Annie?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think we'll be alright? There are a lot of people in trouble out there."

"I think so."

"How do you know?"

"Because I just do."

Dexter thinks for a moment, "Did you ask your imaginary friend? He seems to know all sorts of things?"

"No. He doesn't know the future. I've badgered him enough to know that."

"Oh. He's not just an imaginary friend, is he?"

She shakes her head, "No. He's a ghost."

"Of who?"

"Someone grandma Edith knew years ago. That's what he says."

"Have you asked her about him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He thinks our mother wouldn't want us to know about him. And so I don't ask."

"But that's not grandma and we live in the same house. Maybe we can sneak it in."

Charlotte thinks for a moment, then nods, "I think we could. Mom and Dad are going to visit the cemetery tomorrow. Maybe we can ask then."


	15. Chapter 15

Alone in the house with their grandparents, Anne and Dexter make plans to ask Edith about Thomas after lunch. They don't know if they should ask around Alan, so they try to figure out how to distract him long enough to make their inquiry.

But at lunch, everything goes amiss when Edith says, "Alan tells me you have an imaginary friend who stays with you during the difficult times."

Dexter looks at Anne, eyes wide, "How does he know?"

"The night Harry died. Grandpa talked to him."

"I thought you said grown-ups couldn't see him?"

"No, I said he doesn't usually come around when there are grown-ups nearby. There's a big difference."

Edith interrupts their argument, "So it's true? Thomas visits you?"

Anne nods, "Yes. But mostly just me. Dex is scared of him."

"Am not!"

"Are so! You told me he frightened you because of the gash in his face."

"Well it's a bit upsetting to think of someone getting stabbed!"

She turns to her grandmother, "Is that how he died?"

"It's one of the wounds, yes. That one was the most quickly fatal. The others would have killed him in time."

All of Dexter's nine years have not prepared him for the idea that someone he knows, or knows in ghostly form, could have been murdered, "Hold on, you mean someone stabbed him to death?"

"Yes."

"Oh...that's terrible."

Anne's curiosity gets the better of her, "Where else was he stabbed?"

"Annie!" Dexter gasps.

"No, no, it's quite alright. His torso."

Alan watches to make sure Edith is fine talking about this- he has always been cautious about the subject of Thomas, letting her lead, and skillfully diverting their conversations if it appears she does not want to talk about him any longer. But she seems at ease, as if she has thought about this.

"Who was he?" Anne asks.

"My first husband. He died in England twenty eight years ago."

"Oh. Do you miss him?"

Edith nods, "On occasion. But I found your grandfather waiting for me while recovering from his death. And so here we are."

Anne is satisfied with this answer. Dexter is as well, but he is not sure if this is because the answer is enough or because he does not want to know any more about the murder.

When Charlotte and Harold return from the cemetery, it is late in the evening and supper is ready. When asked about their day, the children do not say anything about Thomas. Late that evening, however, after they are in bed, Edith and Charlotte take tea around the dining table while Alan and Harold play billiards.

"How were the children today, Mother? Honestly."

"Very well behaved. Inquisitive, too."

"Oh? What did they inquire about?"

"An imaginary friend of Annie's."

Charlotte's teacup pauses on its way to her lips, "Why would they ask you about her imaginary friend?" She has suspected for years that the imaginary friend might not be imaginary, but she has pushed it to the back of her mind, hoping her daughter's companion was only a flight of fancy.

"You know as well as I why. He's been watching over the children of this family since he died. Alan tells me he sat up all night watching over them the night we lost Harry."

"What did they ask?"

"How he died. Who he was?"

"And what did you tell them?"

"That he was stabbed to death and that he was my first husband."

"Did they ask anything else?"

"Only if I missed him."

Charlotte sips her tea, "That must have made my father a bit uncomfortable. Or wasn't he privy to this conversation?"

"No, he was there. But he and I talked after. The children are going to be curious about him and we should do our best to answer honestly, even if incompletely. Eventually they may come to know more of his story and I don't want them to think we lied to them."

"His story is pretty terrible."

"That it is. But I think sometimes you forget, dear Lottie, that he was a person, too, and a very broken one at that."

"I don't want you telling them anything else."

"I will not lie to them."

"Change the subject, then. Or tell them that I have forbidden them to ask of him. But I don't want them knowing about the incest or Lucille's brutality."

"They are children- those subjects are obviously taboo. But you cannot keep them from knowing when they are old enough. That would not be fair to them."

Charlotte is not happy with this answer but know she will get nowhere arguing with Edith, "I will have to tell him not to talk to them about it."

"What makes you think he will? He never did to either of you until you asked."

"But I don't want them to know, even if they do!"

Edith sighs, "Lottie...I know you are ashamed of what he did, of what Lucille did...but you cannot keep the children from knowing their other grandfather, when the time is right."

"I only begrudgingly allow it now."

"Did you know for certain they were visiting with him?"

"No. But I had an idea."

"He would have done the same for you, had you allowed it."

"I know."

"Consider this part of his healing- one more step on the path to finding rest. He needs to feel a part of a family and our family is his family. Let him be."

"Only so long as we are in this house."

Edith shakes her head, "You are making a mistake, dear daughter. But only time will convince you of that, if anything. Heaven knows, I can't."


	16. Chapter 16

The politics in Europe worry Alan and the children pepper their supper conversations with questions about Germany and this new political might calling itself Nazi. They are careful to do this only when they have no guests. The conversations make Charlotte uncomfortable. Eliot's military experience means he is likely to go to war if the United States joins it. And in 1940, he welcomes a son, Richard Cutler McMichael, into the world. The boy is so small when the bombs fall on Pearl Harbor and the Navy calls for his service. The entire family accompanies Eliot to Michigan Central Depot to see him off early in 1942.

There are those there who beam as their soldiers board the trains, and others who cry, too aware of what the Great War brought not very long ago. The Cushing-McMichael family does not shout and wave with joy to see Eliot in his uniform, but they are still very proud of him. Charlotte fusses over his lapels while Maria holds their son. She said her goodbyes at the house, worried that the German that still lingers in her language and her accent will bring scorn. She has heard the stories from her parents about what life was like during the Great War.

Anne and May Ellen hold hands while Dexter tugs on Alan's coat, full of questions. He is twelve and still does not entirely understand how bombs from Japan are connected to the war in Europe. But this is not the time for answers and Alan keeps telling him to wait until they return home. Anne and May Ellen are fourteen and both feel as though they must be young women before they are ready. They share a room in their grandmother's house and they will again tonight. They try to smile and wave as Eliot's train pulls away from the station.

Edith takes a deep breath, "And he's off."

"Yes, he is. Hopefully he will be home before next Christmas," Alan says, optimistic beyond what he feels is actually likely.

Charlotte takes Richard while Edith guides Maria, Alan in charge of the other children, "We'd best keep up our strength. There will be many letters to write in our future and you know we are all going to want to keep up on the war reports- an exhausting task we will need to be well nourished for," Charlotte says.

That night, May Ellen falls asleep quickly, already tired from an evening of worry about her father. Anne sits up on her own for a little while before sneaking up to the attic. She has always loved it in the uppermost level, the little windows in the roof peaks providing views of life in the neighbourhood she would otherwise never see. There is also a trunk full of wonderful mechanical toys and models that she knows she is likely not supposed to know about or touch, but she cannot help but open every time she creeps upstairs. They fascinate her. She winds one of them and watches the little gears turn.

Thomas is always near when she is up in the attic. He loves the little space- it reminds him of the one place in Allerdale hall that was his and his alone. The one place he ever felt content and at rest. He often lets himself wonder what would have happened if Lucille hadn't interrupted he and Edith with her damned tea. There wasn't really a good place for intimacy in his workshop, but...it certainly would have made the space feel all the more sacred to have shared a first with his wife there. Anne's love of his little inventions reminds him so much of Edith.

"Thomas? Are you here?"

"Yes, my girl. As always."

"I've been thinking...and it's not thoughts I like."

"Your uncle has gone off to war. I would expect no less."

There are tears in her eyes as she shakes her head, "That's not even what I am thinking about."

"Oh?" He sits beside her on Enola's trunk, a music box in her lap.

She winds it and listens to the tinkling song for a few moments before continuing, "I have to grow up and be a young lady now. My mother is going to work for the Geological survey making maps. She's talked to Maria about May and I doing the same. We're old enough to help out now. And because of that, I'm not sure I can have an imaginary friend anymore."

"Even one who is really a ghost?"

"I don't know. Probably."

He sighs, "I will be here when you call. I promised myself years ago that I would watch over this family as my penance for a life wasted. If you need me, I will always come."

She nods and wipes her eyes on her sleeve, "Thank you. When May or I have children, perhaps you could play with them as you did us."

"If you wish."

"Which is the exact opposite of Mom, isn't it? I know how you never came around when there were adults near. Except when you spoke to Grandpa. You knew him, didn't you?"

"Briefly."

"But long enough that he thought you capable of watching the children."

"Or desperate enough."

"I may have been asleep, but I heard what Mother said."

"But you still trusted me?"

"I thought that since you had never hurt us, she must have just been hysterical from Harry's death. But there's a lot about you I don't know, isn't there?"

"Yes."

"And you won't tell me?"

"No."

"Should I ask Mom?"

"No."

"Grandma?"

"Better."

She smiles, "Thank you, Thomas. For all you've been to me. I think, at least for a little while, I need to be a grown up, though. So goodbye for now, imaginary friend."

"Goodbye, dear girl." He fades and leaves. Even if she does not want to see him, there are things he feels he must do for the family. There are children to keep track of and father heading into war to watch. But he is distraught and neither of these options seem good. So instead, he returns to his grave and settles into his death for just a little rest.


	17. Chapter 17

In death, he rests. It is nice to settle into the grave for a long sleep, one he hopes will not be interrupted. She cannot bother him in his coffin, attached to his body, but he knows that he will, eventually, bore and wish to wander the graveyard again. While he loves his family dearly, watching them is an intense job and he needs just a little break. He will listen, of course, for the war, and he will watch Eliot as soon as he gets a little sleep.


	18. Chapter 18

Thomas likes the quiet of resting under the earth. It is dark, it is peaceful, and Lucille cannot reach him here. He still does not entirely understand the rules of being dead, but he likes this one- the dead cannot disturb one another in their graves. They can disturb one another in the graveyards, and in the places they haunt, but their graves are theirs and theirs alone. He cannot even hear her calling here.

Time, even, seems to slip by more quickly in the dirt and, because of this, he must be more careful in counting the hours. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he knows he has let too much slip by. He rises. There are new headstones in the cemetery, marked with dates that say these young men were far too young to join him. And then he realizes that the last one, the dirt still bare, reads 1944 and Eliot has been on his own at war for far too long.

He panics and hurries to Elmwood. There are no new burials in the Cushing-McMichael plot. He sighs, relieved. And then he goes to find Eliot.

He follows his heart to an island in the South Pacific, Saipan, where the fighting is fierce and there are bodies scattered on a beach, charred landing crafts in the surf, the water churning under heavy fire. Eliot tends to the wounded with little cover, explosions shaking the ground beneath his feet and machine gun fire peppering the sand around him. He works quickly, steadily, his voice calm even as the men around him scream, their bodies shattered by bullets. Thomas cannot fathom what is happening. He has never seen death like this.

Eliot survives that first day and, after the Army sends reinforcements to the Marines the next morning, he pushes forward alongside his unit, the Naval medics marching with their Marine brethren. Their services, they know, will be highly valued as they march on the Japanese, heavily fortified in the mountains. Everyone knows they are walking into a death trap, but advance they do, despite heavy fire from soldiers high above them on the rocky ridge. But Eliot does his work the best he can, working swiftly to bring the wounded he can save to more sheltered positions. There are so many casualties that the medics work steadily night and day, surviving on terrible coffee and adrenaline. Once in a while, they even sleep. Thomas watches in awe of their tenacity and dedication. Even already dead, he is utterly terrified by the sounds of war and the mangled bodies brought to the medics for some measure of repair. Or, in some cases, for a little extra morphine to aide their passage to the next world.

It is nearly a month later, on July 6th, when thousands of Japanese soldiers make a final charge and overrun the Marines Eliot is serving with. In the chaos, Thomas loses sight of him. When he finds him, the scene plays out so quickly that Thomas cannot react- he wants to, for certain, but by the time that his brain registers that the man charging at Eliot is holding a live grenade, all he can do is appear between the two and hope he stays as solid as he is when Edith touches him. But he does not. The Japanese soldier runs through him and the grenade explodes. Thomas cries out, yelling Eliot's name. There is little left of the young man he watched grow up. He kneels beside his shredded body and sobs, calling his name, but no one can see him. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to see Eliot behind him.

"Thank you."

"Eliot? I am so sorry...I tried to stop him..."

"Mother told me ghosts can't stop death- you are a watcher, not a guardian angel. Weren't those your words?"

"Yes."

Eliot offers him a hand, "I need to move on. Be at peace. See my son. But for a moment...you need to know it didn't hurt all that much. It was fast. And I did well here. There will be many men who credit me with their survival. My father will be proud of that."

"That he will. He has always been proud of you."

"Keep an eye on Lottie, please? And Maria? And the children?"

"As always, dear boy."

"I'm sorry I was so unforgiving in life. You've done well by us. I'd ask you to come rest with me, but I know you won't."

"While I appreciate the offer, you are correct. I still have work to do, penance to pay."

Eliot offers his hand and they shake, but then he shakes his head, smiling, and hugs Thomas, "Until we meet again, then."

"Until we meet again, Eliot." Eliot closes his eyes and dissipates into the gunsmoke. Thomas looks to the body at his feet and sighs, "Rest well, sweet boy." He knows he must take this message home to Edith, that it would not be right to keep her guessing at why her heart feels so heavy, but he dreads saying the words and breaking her heart once again.


	19. Chapter 19

July 4, 1944. The family gathers to celebrate the Fourth on Belle Isle. After, Maria, her parents, May, and Richard return to the farm while Charlotte, Harold, Anne, and Dexter go home to Brush Park with Edith and Alan.

Two days later, Edith knows something is very wrong. She can't sleep. Alan is worried. He asks if it is Eliot. She fears that it is. She visits Charlotte's room in the middle of the night. She feels it, too.

Thomas has been watching them since leaving Saipan. He does not want to break the news to the family, but when Edith asks for him in the wee hours of the morning as she sits by the fireside, he appears.

"I don't want to know...not yet. But tell me, is this fear founded?"

"I am so sorry. Yes."

"Oh god..."

"Edith, please, let me-"

"No."

"But I saw-"

"NO."

"You do not yet want to believe it."

"Yes."

He sighs, his heart heavy, eyes downcast, "Be ready, though."

"I will. I would like to be alone."

Thomas fades. He watches Charlotte for a few moments, knowing that whenever word arrives, her world will shatter. He then goes to the farm to peer in on Maria and the children. They are blissfully unaware of what has happened, though Maria feels that something is wrong. She brushes it off, though- her husband is at war, something is always wrong.

It takes a few months for the telegram to arrive, but when it does, the world ends. Maria does not need to open the envelope to know what it says. She drops to the kitchen floor and screams. Her mother rushes in, frantic, but she cannot get her daughter to speak. Her father sees the envelope in her hand and knows what has happened. He gently pries it from her fingers and opens it.

_Deeply regret to inform you that your husband, Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Eliot C C McMichael USN was killed in action in performance of his duty and service to his country. No information available at present as to disposition of remains. Temporary burial in locality where death occurred probable. You will be promptly furnished any additional information received. To prevent possible aid to our enemies do not divulge the name of his ship or station. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy. Letter follows._

He sets the letter on the counter.

May hears her mother's anguished wails and knows what has happened. She finds Richard playing in their room.

"I think Dad's dead."

Richard drops his airplane, "Why?"

"Mom's screaming in the kitchen."

"Maybe she got hurt."

"Not that kind of screaming. This is bad, Rich. Really bad."

Thomas is ready to appear to the children for the first time as a comfort when their grandfather enters and sits down with them, "It is, May. Your dad...the war got him. He's gone." Richard disolves into tears. May stares at the floor, her heart sinking. "I'm going to go tell your Grandma Edith in person. This isn't the kind of thing you say over the telephone."

"I want to come, too."

"Are you sure, May?"

"Yes."

"You're awfully calm about this."

"I've had a feeling something was wrong since July. I thought it might have happened. I'll cry later. There are things we have to do now."

He gathers Richard in his arms and cradles the boy as he flails, upset far beyond words. He carries him to the kitchen and hands him to his grandmother. May meets him at the car.

When they reach Brush Park, it is late in the evening and there is a slight chill on the air as the sun drops below the horizon. May knocks on the door and Charlotte answers.

"Miss May- what a surprise! What are you doing here?"

"May we come in, Aunt Charlotte?"

"Of course. Make yourselves at home. I'll let Mother know you're here."

"And Granddad. There's bad news." Her solomn expression tells Charlotte to hurry.

Anne meets them in the library before the others have arrived, "Bad news?"

"We're only saying this once." Her grandfather sits and watches her.

Anne pales, "That bad?" Edith and Alan hurry into the room with Charlotte and Dexter following close behind.

"May, let me tell this. You don't need to be the one to say it." She steps back, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I am. We received the telegram today. Eliot's gone."

Charlotte drops to the couch and sobs. Dexter can't think and stares at the floor, tears streaming down his cheeks. Edith shakes as Alan leads her to a place beside Charlotte. Neither can keep up their resolve for more than a moment. Anne flees. May follows her. And her grandfather is left to do the best he can to offer some kind of solace to the family when he himself has not yet started to grieve. He decides that the first thing he must do is notify Harold that he needs to come home from work early. It is the rational thing to do, and reason is the only thing he can rely on to keep his own head above water.

Anne runs to the attic. She needs to be someplace safe, someplace hers, and this little corner of her grandmother's house is the corner she needs. She knows May is behind her and she leaves the attic door open for her as she drops beside Enola's trunk and cries.

May sits beside her, "I knew it was coming. I've cried about this every night for the past few months. Something just felt wrong. And now I know. Dad's dead."

"Thomas. I need to talk to Thomas. Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Thomas? Are you here?" She looks around through her tears and cannot see him.

He fades into view beside the old watchmaker's cabinet, "As always."

"Did you know?"

"Yes. Edith did not want me to tell. And so I did not."

"But it's true."

"Yes."

"Can he visit, like you?"

"No. He is at rest."

"I need you."

"And that is why I never left." He crouches down beside her. May backs away, not sure what she is seeing. He gestures for her to come close, too. "Don't be afraid. I've been a part of this family since 1901. I won't hurt you."

"What are you?"

"A ghost. Though for a little while, I was known as an imaginary friend."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I have much to atone for. Please, come. Grieve with your cousin. Your father has died. You may not think you need to cry, but you do."

He puts an arm around Anne's shoulder and she leans into him. He is a solid and as cold as he has always been. It is something that still surprises her. But it is an odd comfort. May hesitates, but then cuddles beside Anne and bursts into tears.

The girls cry until they nearly fall asleep and then they retreat to the bedroom and doze off curled together, still in their dresses. Charlotte cannot sleep and stays up in her room drawing with Dexter beside her. Harold sleeps because he has to. The trains will not stop for his mourning. And in the guest room, May's other grandfather prays for his family and for the endurance to carry them through this deep grief.

Alan can hardly fathom the loss of his son. He now knows what both his children felt not all that long ago when Little Alan and Harry died. He feels as though his heart has been ripped from his chest. Edith walks beside him to their bedroom in a daze. She has seen so much of death that she did not think it could disturb her anymore, especially given that her ghostly first husband haunts her halls. But this is different. This is the little child she raised into a bright and witty young man. And he is gone. There is a void in her life that will never be filled.

Snuggled against Alan, both of their eyes red, she can only think of one thing to say, "I should have let Thomas tell me months ago."

"It is better that we all know at the same time. Maria would never have believed you. You would have spent months grieving a loss none of us could verify."

"I know. But a telegram is so cold. I am grateful that we were told in person."

"As am I. Do you think Thomas would have told you?"

"He offered. I told him I wasn't ready."

"This is the kind of news we are never ready for."

"I know. But he's lost a son before. Maybe he has some advice on how to get through this."

"He told El...Eliot something when Alan died. That there is only one thing you can do when something like this happens. Keep living."

Edith wipes her eyes and nods, "I suppose so." She starts crying again, "I just don't now how."

Alan cries with her. And from his place unseen near the doorway, Thomas feels like crying, too.


	20. Chapter 20

Healing is slow and grief takes time. Edith finds that the moments of Eliot in his children slowly move her from sadness to the great joy. The first day she realizes this has happened, she knows her heart is ready to honour his life instead of dwelling only in his death. It is spring, and there are bright red poppies in the front garden. They hold a second meaning for her now, and she cannot bring herself to pull the errant ones that spread from their garden box.

When the war ends and the soldiers come home, flags fly throughout Detroit and there is a parade on Woodward that dwarfs any that Anne, Dexter, and May have ever seen. It reminds Charlotte too much of the parade that marked the end of the First World War. And then there is also the reminder that their own soldier is not among them. The family retreats to the house in Brush Park to mark the day quietly.

With the war over and the Arsenal of Democracy no longer chugging out guns and tanks and planes, Detroit's factories return to making cars and all the trappings of middle class luxury that comes with a booming industrial sector. The neighbourhoods begin to change as soldiers from the South come to experience the heartbeat of the Midwest in its factories. Detroit is booming, thriving, and exciting.

But the Cushing-McMichael house in Brush Park is far quieter now than it has been these past few years. Charlotte and Harold have moved the Strong family into their own home. Every cent Anne earned during the war is spent on the dream, even though she will only be living there a few more years. She has met a young man.

It is only thanks to the war that they have crossed paths. While working for the US Geological Survey, Anne wrote letters to soldiers and sailors. One young man wrote back more frequently than the others.

His parents have died, so she is his first stop after returning home. She leaves her job at the switchboard and goes to meet a man she has never seen at a little cafe with which she is quite familiar. She sits near the front windows sipping a coffee, fiddling with the little pearl buttons on her gloves while she waits. He had told her that he would find her, not to worry, and she would know when he entered. She certainly does. He arrives in his dress uniform. He looks so much like the photograph she keeps in her purse. She shifts to stand so she can greet him, but he turns to her, smiles, and shakes his head. She sits down.

"Miss Anne Victoria Strong. You are every bit as radiant as your picture."

She blushes, "Would you allow me to say the same for you, Mr Matthew Porter Drake?"

He laughs, "Well you have a good memory if you know my middle name. I think I only signed it once."

"And it was written on the back of your picture."

"Ah, yes. That."

"I feel as though I've known you for years, and not merely through letters."

"Thank god for mail call. I waited for your envelopes every time."

"My grandparents thought I was going to jump out of my skin with excitement when your letters came in the post."

"The post? You speak like the British boys I served with."

"Sorry. It's one of my grandmother's words- the family's a little old-fashioned. We lived with them during the war."

"No, no, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not something I've heard stateside very often."

There is a bit of a pause, then Anne asks, "So...what should I know about you that we didn't cover in the letters? Do you have any odd habits? Like to sleep with a teddy bear? Believe in ghosts? Tried to sneak onto Boblo Island?"

He laughs, "Odd habits? Hmmm...now that I think about it, my adoration of collecting early Victorian postcards might be considered odd. But beyond that, I'm rather normal. Or at least I think so. And no, not a teddy bear. A stuffed rabbit. On ghosts...I've seen some strange things, let's just leave it there. And while it seems like it would be impossible to sneak onto Boblo Island, I did manage to stow away on one of the ferries once."

"How on earth did you manage that?"

"With this clever mind, that's how. I can't give away all my secrets up front, can I, Miss Strong?"

"Please, we've been writing for years, I'm just Anne."

"Well, Anne, I have had a question on my mind since before the war ended." He takes a small velvet satchel from his breast pocket, "Would you consider a long engagement?" He draws out a ring, "And, of course, I have no idea if this will fit. But I know a very good jeweler if you accept it."

She is beaming, "Yes! You do remember that I would like to continue my studies?"

"Oh yes. I wouldn't stop you for the world." He tries the ring on her hand and it is a little big for her ring finger, but it fits on her middle one and she wears it home under her white gloves, the tiny diamond chips and delicate gold band hardly visible. Alan notices the ring first, but because she has said nothing, he doesn't mention it to anyone but Edith. She is giddy with the idea that her granddaughter is likely in love and engaged.

On Remembrance Day, Anne meets Matthew for ceremonies at Elmwood with a paper poppy pinned to her jacket. She cannot keep from crying as the bugles play. He does not know why she is so deeply moved. After, he offers to take her to the cafe, but she declines, instead asking if they can go walking on Belle Isle. He accepts and she tells him about Eliot as they sit on a bench overlooking the river. Matthew asks where he served and she says she does not know. He promises to find out for her and asks if he can tell her a little of his own service. She nods. He was one of the youngest men in his unit when he participated in Operation Overlord and it is only now that Anne knows just how close he came to death, with gunfire raining down from the cliffs of Normandy.

A year after they have become engaged, Anne finally tells her family that she intends to be married. While it was never a secret and, at this point, they had all noticed the little ring, Anne and Matthew enjoyed the quiet excitement of having a secret all their own. Charlotte approves of the match in nearly every way but one- Matthew has no intent to quit his military career, even once married. She is worried what will happen if there is another war. But while she has told her daughter her concern, she has never told Anne that she would stand in her way. Harold likes him, too, and loves how happy he makes his daughter. Edith and Alan happily welcome him into their home for family gatherings.

They are ready to take him to meet Maria, May, and Richard at the farm when Maria calls, distraught. May has announced she is pregnant. Charlotte and Harold respect that she wants time to figure out how to keep this from becoming some sort of scandal, but neither think it is as horrible as she believes it is. Anne, finding the entire idea of calling off their picnic ridiculous, invites them to travel to Detroit instead so they will not be seen by their neighbours. Maria declines, not wanting her daughter seen in public with the bump beneath her dress. Charlotte calls Edith and soon the invitation is changed from Belle Isle to Brush Park. Maria hesitates, thinking there will be some sort of chastisement from her in-laws. One never comes. They are all, as always, greeted with open arms.

Thomas has avoided appearing to anyone since Eliot's death, but he still watches the family and celebrates in his heart when things are joyful. This new growing little life, as well as the romance blossoming between Anne and Matthew, brings him happiness.

May's little girl, born in the winter of 1946, is named for her grandmother and great grandmother- Maria Edith McMichael. Thomas greets her at her crib. She gurgles and coos, reaching up to touch his cheek as he kisses her forehead. He is overjoyed to meet her and slips away before her mother returns.


	21. Chapter 21

Three years later, Anne graduates with a degree in architecture and marries Matthew. Their children follow quickly after, Richard in 1950 and Daisy in 1952. Richard cries when Thomas visits, but Anne lifts the child from the cradle and holds him, calming him, while Thomas kisses his forehead. She wants to ask him so many things, but he vanishes before she can do more than tell him how good it is to see him. She wonders why he has been so quiet. When Daisy is born, Matthew has been in Korea for a few months. Anne is lonely. When Thomas appears to greet her daughter, Richard hides behind her legs.

"There's nothing to fear. Thomas is an old friend."

He smiles as he bends low to kiss little Daisy's forehead. She coos and tries to suck on his nose. He laughs.

"She must be hungry."

"Shall I leave so you can feed her?"

"No, you don't need to go." She picks up the little girl and settles into the couch to nurse. Richard hides behind it.

"Oh, Rich...come now...."

"I was not Dexter's favourite apparition, either, was I?"

"No, you weren't." She adjusts the squirming baby, "Where have you been? With Matthew in Korea...I would like your company."

"All you need to do is ask, dear Anne. But I am not all-knowing, not even death has brought that. If you wish me here, you must make that known."

"Have you been watching?"

"Yes. I watch you. I watch Dexter. I watch May. I watch the elder Richard. And I watch your parents, your children, and your grandparents."

"That's a lot of people to watch."

"It is."

"Is something wrong? You seem distant."

Thomas nods, "There are men approaching the house. I can hear their footsteps."

Anne puts Richard down for his nap and nestles Daisy beside him. She goes to the door. Two officers approach the house. Anne knows exactly what this means and she is pale as she opens the door.

"Mrs Drake? I regret to inform you...." She does not hear the rest of what he says, clutching the doorframe for support. She faints; one of the officers catches her.

Thomas softly closes the nursery door. Daisy wakes and begins to whimper. Thomas strokes her back and sings to her, his voice so soft that he bends down only inches from her to make sure she can hear. She settles and sucks on her hand, falling back asleep.

A half hour later, Anne, trembling, enters the nursery to find Thomas still sitting beside the children, "You knew."

"I always do."

"When they happen, or before?"

"Time is...unclear to me. I prefer to stay in the timeline I know. I could move ahead, but I do not want to forget when you are. I know when they happen."

"How long has he been gone?"

"Just a few days before Daisy was born."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you needed your strength to bring her forth."

"But after...."

"Your children needed you. And he was not going to change."

She sits beside him, "Have you been watching them this whole time?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. I should call Mom."

"Perhaps. But if you need this to be only your grief for just a little longer, it will do no harm to wait."

"And the ghost would know about death, wouldn't he?"

"Quite intimately."

"Will he watch them like you watch us?"

"Those with nothing to atone for do not linger."

"What comes next? Will I see him again?"

"I don't know. I haven't felt worthy enough to try. Eliot thought he would see those who had gone before him. He stayed only long enough to speak to me after his death."

"You saw...?"

"Yes. I was on the island."

"Oh god...have you told anyone else?"

"Edith knows I saw, but I have told her nothing else. She does not need to know how he died."

"And what if I want to know what happened to Matthew?"

"They will tell you, in time. But it will be incomplete. A story told for comfort, not for details. Trust me, my darling Anne, what they tell you will be enough. The precise manner of these things...is not something you want to know."

Anne leans on him the same way did when she had received news of Eliot's death, "I hate crying."

"I know." Tears streak her cheeks and she hastily wipes them away, "Don't. You need not worry about appearances. You just received word your beloved husband is dead. Grieve, and grieve deeply."

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, "I'm sorry I told you I didn't want to see you."

"My dear girl, that should be the farthest thing from your mind right now."

"But I don't want to think about...."

"Say it. It will help it be real. And it will help you start to grieve."

"He's dead. Matthew is dead." He is right. The sobs come quickly. She wants to ask him if he saw what happened, but knows that if she does, she will also want to know more. And she trusts when he says she will not want to know those details once she has heard them. So she does not ask.

Thomas, however, cannot erase the scene of her young husband's death from his mind. There was a hill, and orders to take it, and everything went terribly wrong. He did not die quickly, as Eliot had, and in his final moments, Thomas sat with him, held him, and prayed for it to end while Matthew begged for death. The wound would be fatal, one way or another. No surgeons in the world could have stitched together a working body from what was left of his torso. From not far away, there was a crack of gunfire and Matthew fell silent. Looking up, Thomas saw a young soldier. The boy, for he was not much older than one, nodded at Thomas and then jogged away to return to fighting. Both horrified and grateful, Thomas closed Matthew's eyes.

"It's what I told them to do." He turned; Matthew was crouched beside him, "I made it clear that if I wasn't going to make it, I wanted someone to give me a bit of mercy. Learned that watching men die in the last war." He put a hand on Thomas' shoulder, "Take care of Anne, will you? And the children?" Thomas nodded, and he was gone. It felt far too familiar.

Anne's grieving is interrupted by more tragedy when her father is struck by a train at work and dies. They bury him in the family plot before Matthew's body returns home. When he does arrive, there are men in uniform to bear him to his grave. Anne stands beside Maria at the funeral, two military wives widowed far too young. For a few months, May moves into Anne's home to help with the children and take care of the chores. When she leaves, the house is far too quiet. Anne returns to work, dropping the children off with Edith during the days. But she has few options, even with Matthew's military pension.

To Thomas, these deaths are different than when someone dies from age, as Alan does a few years later, or even the deaths of the children years before. Those deaths were tragic, yes, but not so intentional, so brutal, so violent. Thomas carries memories of these deaths with him as he treks to Elmwood with his family once more to fill one more space in the family plot.

Charlotte wonders why she is keeping her own house, now that her mother is living alone in Brush Park. But she is also not ready to leave it. She talks to Anne, who feels the same way about her own home. She both wants to leave to return to the warmth of her grandmother's familiar house and to desperately cling to the home she and Matthew had only just begun to build.

There are more comings and goings in the family in the next few years.

Dixon marries a lovely young clerk from Hudsons named Harriet.

More children arrive when Eliot's son, Richard Cutler, marries, and then his wife and one of the twins die shortly after birth.

Edith feels the fragility of her own life after Alan's death and, in 1962, when May Ellen, her own granddaughter, becomes a grandmother herself, she yearns for the sound of children in the now quiet house in Brush Park. She offers her home to Charlotte, Anne and her family, and May and her daughter and granddaughter. While Charlotte declines, the other two families accept and Anne's son, now twelve, declares himself the man of the house.

 


	22. Chapter 22

Richard Seth Drake, son of Anne and Matthew, brother to Daisy, knows that, as the only boy in the house, he must help take special care of his great grandmother Edith. He brings her his schoolwork when he thinks it will be new to her. She teaches him the things she once learned in her own schooling and introduces him to the novels she and Alan collected- Sherlock Holmes, but also Wilkie Collins and Edgar Alan Poe, one of her favourites. He likes Holmes the best. The idea of solving problems through observation appeals to him. He is a quiet young man, a thinker, and a watcher. Edith thinks he is quite a lot like his great grandfather.

Daisy Helen Drake, however, is all spark and emotion. She draws and paints architectural details in her free time, even at ten, carrying a sketchbook wherever she goes, jotting notes about what she sees in the city in the margins so she can finish her drawings when she has more time. Edith wonders if this is Thomas she sees in the girl. So much imagination, so much creativity. She will build the world to suit her, rather than accepting it has any set of given rules like her brother. She takes up playing as many instruments as she can and embraces the folk music resurgence that the flower children bring with them to the city. She is too young to join them, but she loves the colours of their clothing, the ideals they espouse, and the music of a generation ready to take on the world.

Daisy loves her imaginary friend, even when she discovers he is not imaginary. He is her frequent companion, sitting on the floor of her bedroom listening to her tell stories to her stuffed animals, telling him that he is most certainly going to play tea party with her, and, in later years, calling on him to share the music she brings home on shiny black vinyls.

Richard thinks his sister, as fanciful as she is, is impractical and childish. He is only two years her elder, but even in 1965, when she is but thirteen and he fifteen, he considers himself her protector and the wiser sibling. She laughs at his attempts to bring her to reason.

She loves exploring the old brick house and her favourite place is the attic. She discovered it years ago, but never bothered to explore the boxes and trunks. But when Edith does some cleaning, a black lacquered trunk labeled "Enola" surfaces and she is far too curious not to open it. She drags it over to the watchmaker's cabinet where the sunlight streams in from the uncurtained window. When she lifts the lid, she has no idea what she is looking at.

"What is all this stuff?"

Thomas appears beside the cabinet, fading into view slowly so as not to startle her, "It is obsolete."

"Yeah, maybe, but what is it? Look at all these gears!"

"I once built things. Toys. Engines. Music box workings."

"This was yours?"

"Yes."

"How does it all work?"

"Some by the power of steam, some by cranks or gravity. None of it is overly complicated. You should be able to figure it out if you study it."

She sets some of the mechanisms on the bench, "I think I'll start by drawing it. This stuff is just fascinating...and would you look at this lighting!"

Thomas laughs- her delight in his handiwork brings him such joy. He sits with her as she sketches. When her brother interrupts her, she tells Thomas to have him shoo off. He shakes his head and shrugs to Richard. Richard rolls his eyes and leaves them alone in the attic.

As Richard approaches sixteen, he decides that he will be either a scientist or a detective when he leaves school. There are plans to make, colleges to explore, and so many different paths open before him in the wide world that he cannot sort through them all. So when he finishes high school, he tries for the police academy. When he cannot pass their physical exam, being a small, thin young man, he decides that he should try for college instead. While Daisy sketches in the attic, Richard travels the country looking at colleges, hoping that he will find one that is the best fit. He still cannot decide and takes work instead at the Rouge plant, spending his evenings sitting with his great grandmother, dreaming of the things he will do when he finds the right school and gets his degree.

 

 


	23. Chapter 23

Daisy's childhood ends, however, when the war in Veitnam demands more soldiers and the draft chooses Richard. It is a situation he cannot logic his way free from and, no matter how hard he tries, at only eighteen, to tell the draft board that he is the only young many caring for a household of women, including his great grandmother, he cannot wriggle his way out of the Army. Anne knows long before it comes that she will lose him as she lost her husband and her uncle. This is what war does in their family. And when Thomas appears to her as she sits by the fireside, she knows what news he brings. She stares at the flames, her face blank as tears stream down her cheeks.

"I am so sorry, Anne."

"I knew. I knew when his papers came from the draft board that this is how it would end. Grandma and I sat and talked about it for hours that night."

"That does not make this easy on either of us."

"My heart is in pieces, Thomas. Does it ever come back together? And how will I tell Mother? Grandmother? Daisy?"

"You will either say the words or wait for the men in uniform. They will come. And then you will not need to say anything at all."

She gestures for him to follow her and retreats to the attic, "It is quiet here. And I feel like I can think better."

"Anne, you are avoiding grief."

"I know. You are absolutely sure he is gone?"

"Yes. I promised myself I would never lie to Edith or to her descendents." He does not volunteer that he saw this death as well, a scared young man in the jungle faced by another scared young man with far more to fear from his own commanders than Richard had from his. While Richard hesitated, the other boy did not. It was fast. There was no time spent in lasting agony. His body was retrieved in haste and Thomas did not have time to mourn beside him. He also did not meet his ghost. Richard, he knew, went to rest quickly.

She sits down beside Enola's trunk, "Who were you, other than her first husband?

"You will have to ask Edith that question."

"There are beautiful things in this trunk. Gears that tick along with their own heartbeat; one that syncs with mine. A model of a digging machine that actually works. A music box. Moving things. Things you left behind."

"I did."

"My son leaves so little behind. He barely began to live." Anne stares at the floor.

Thomas sits beside her, "I hate being a portent of death. I wish that I had been able to meet every one of you in the land of the living. I would be century and one this year. I miss the beauty of life. This will sound terrible, given the circumsances, but I envy those who die at peace, no matter how short their ages. They go to their rest. I am still here."

"Is he at peace?"

"Yes. They all are. Eliot. Matthew. Richard."

Anne breaks down. For the second time, Thomas holds her while she grieves in private. She tells the family at breakfast what news Thomas brought, and it is not long before there are two men in uniform on their doorstep. This time, Anne does not faint. She is still and silent. May sits with Daisy, Maria Edith, and her own six year old granddaughter, Nellie. They collapse against her in a pile. Edith stays with Anne. There will be calls to make later to the rest of the family, but at this moment, she knows that Anne's heart is shattered in the same way hers was in 1944. She thanks the officers for coming, for making the journey through neighbourhoods that are rioting. While they grapple with the question of how to move forward, Detroit is burning.


	24. Chapter 24

Edith knows that her family needs to move on from the neighbourhood that she knows will take decades to recover, if it ever does. But the house, which is showing its age, is hers and she deeply desires to live out her years in its quiet red brick walls. There is peace in the house in Brush Park even if there is no peace anywhere else in the world or in the city of Detroit. And in the shadow of the loss of one more of their young men, the peace of the familiar is powerful.

There is one last birth in the house- Nellie's daughter, Rose Eliot McMichael, is born when Edith is one year past a century old in 1978. When she is born, Thomas once again appears at her crib, as he has done for each of these new children, to kiss her in welcome. Nellie is there when he visits and asks him to watch over her, to befriend her, to be her imaginary friend. He is delighted. She also asks that he stay with them, visible, and a part of their household just as any of the living. He is not sure if this is permitted of the dead, but he is incredibly grateful for her invitation. He tells her that he will consider it, but not until Edith has lived her last days. He does not want to upset her.

Edith holds Rose for the first time when she is but two days old. She kisses the little girl- her great great great granddaughter. A beautiful child with fine wispy hair- hair that her own son had when he was also only two days old. The moment brings tears to her eyes and she knows she will be at peace when she leaves the world. Eliot lives on through these children. She knows it will not be long until she joins him. In a way, she is happy to cross over to the other side. There are faces there she has not seen in decades, people she misses and dearly loves. She remembers Mr Barrie's words, "To die would be an awfully big adventure." She retrieves Peter Pan from her shelves and reads it every night before bed as she once did to her own children.

A few months pass and she weakens, spending most of her time in the rocking chair beside the fire. Charlotte dies before her, her health declining rapidly. Edith, with what little strength she has left, travels once again to Elmwood Cemetery. There are three military headstones, one for Matthew, one for Richard, and one holding a space for Eliot, whenever he returns home. Charlotte is placed between her brother's waiting grave and her husband. There is one monument around which the children have been buried. And there is a space waiting for her beside Alan.

She returns to the house and lays down to rest. Anne brings her soup. She eats slowly and falls asleep after a dozen little sips. When she wakes late in the night, Thomas sits beside her.

"It is time, isn't it?"

"When you are ready, yes."

"What is it like?"

"Death?"

"Or the ever after."

"Death is just a passing. Nothing difficult. Unless you achieve it by being stabbed in the face. That isn't exactly pleasant. But the slipping itself? Only a moment and then it is over. But I cannot tell you what happens next if you have nothing to atone for. I haven't yet achieved that."

"Would you come with me? Find your peace?"

"Eliot asked me the same thing. But no. There is something I haven't yet done. I don't know what it is yet, but I need to be here for it."

"When you do, meet me so I know you have found rest- I hold nothing but kindness and forgiveness for you in my heart." She takes his hand.

"Bless you, Edith."

She smiles, "Thank you. And goodbye. I have many ready to welcome me to the other side."

He nods and she closes her eyes, breathes a few last slow breaths, and is gone. He sits with her a few moments. On her nightstand, he spots a leatherbound volume under her worn copy of Peter Pan. His diary. He picks it up. A bookmark slips from the last few pages. He opens it, notices the entry, and tucks the bookmark back where it was. She read it. Or most of it- enough to know his heart. And still she invited him to find his peace with her. He takes it with him. It does not need to be here in the open.

"I already miss you." He kisses her forehead, and goes to Anne to herald death once more.


	25. Chapter 25

With Edith's death, there is no reason to stay in the house in Brush Park other than the heart, but even Anne's heart cannot justify staying there when the house needs so much work and the neighbourhood is falling apart. She calls a family conference and they do not take long to decide that they should find another home. Something with far fewer stairs as she and May age. May also wants to bring her mother into the household and she uses a wheelchair. Daisy and Maria Edith volunteer to take on the task of looking for something suitable.

When they cannot find a house, Anne suggests the next best thing- they build one. There is money still coming from England, from a company she has never heard of that they somehow hold stock in. Edith's accounts, split between her grandchildren, are far more than adequate to build any house they imagine. They purchase property far from the city- so far that they are in farm country in the little village of Stockbridge- and build a large single story house on a former farmstead with a big red barn. When they move, they take most of the items in the Brush Park house with them. The old furniture, the books, the trunk in the attic and the watchmaker's cabinet and tool box. Rose also makes sure they take Thomas.

Maria Lee, May Ellen's mother, Eliot's widow, dies happily surrounded by her family in the house in the country with a soft grey cat nestled on her lap. May is glad to have given this little peace to her mother.

Rose is four when Daisy gives birth to Edith Aster. Once again, Thomas greets her in her crib. She is awake and giggling as he kisses her forehead.

"Why hello, little one. You are a lively one."

Rose skips over to look in the crib, "It's OK, Eddie. I'll share my imaginary friend with you. You can play with Thomas, too."

"I'm happy to hear you will share me. It would make me quite sad to not be able to play with her."

"It'll be fun. Like having a little sister. Maybe we can dress her up and take her out for walks in pretty fluffy things. I have a dolly pram she'd fit in. Mom says that's not what it's for, but she's just the right size."

"You'd best listen to your mother, dear Rose. I would not want to see you scolded. But dressing her up, that would be quite lovely. A little princess of your own."

"That would make me the queen!"

"That it would, my dear."

"I would be an awesome queen."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Everyone gets desert first every night. Pudding pie. That would be my first decree."

"I think that would be quite a worthy first decree for a queen."

"Mom thinks so, too. Though she thinks there should be ice cream."

"Well perhaps that could be your second decree."

She grins, "I like the way you think."

This life with the children is so vastly different than the one he led before their move. After Maria Lee's death, he realized that there was no one in the house who had not seen him since childhood. Anne, Daisy, and Eddie, May Ellen, Maria, Nellie and Rose, were all infants he greeted in their cribs and none of them know the darker parts of his story. Because of this, he shows himself regularly, playing with Rose and Eddie, appearing to speak to the adult women as they work around the house, and even slipping in for evening storytelling when they gather together. This is his little family. He wishes he were alive so he could be an even greater part of it. But he also realizes that had he survived Allerdale Hall, he would have long since died. His restless death and his need for atonement is what has given him this chance. In a way, he is grateful for his mistakes.

Anne dies in 1987, just days after her brother, Dixon, passes away. Everything she owns falls to Daisy. Dixon's widow, Harriet, asks for help with his things. After the siblings rest in Elmwood, Daisy leaves Eddie with the family so she can go through Harriet's house. In exchange, Harriet gives her what she has of Charlotte's papers- letters, mostly, but also stock certificates. There is plenty for her to live on, no matter how long her life. With no children of her own, Daisy is her closest family.

Two years later, Daisy once again goes through Harriet's estate, but this time she is by herself and Harriet has joined Dixon in Elmwood.

Eddie does not like that her mother is gone for so long. She is seven, but she is a far more sensitive child than she thinks she should be. She cries easily, and Thomas frequently sits with her in the evenings when she is afraid of the dark or the sounds the house makes as it settles.

One night, while Daisy is still in Detroit, she hears a shrieking alarm that hurts her ears. She covers them and cries for Thomas. He appears to her briefly before going to investigate the sound. What he finds is in the kitchen. Fire. He returns to her as fast as he can and pushes her out the bedroom window. She sits, crying, in the flowerbed while he rouses the others. Rose grabs her hand and tries to drag her farther from the house. When she can't, she calls for help. Nellie and Maria grab the girls and move them to a safe distance. Nellie wants to run back in the house for May Ellen. Maria stops her. The fire truck pulls into the driveway and the firefighters enter the house. May Ellen emerges shortly after, leaning on one of the men. She is delirious, muttering about an angel leading her out of her bed, and they give her oxygen. Maria runs to sit with her while Nellie stays with the girls. They douse the fire in only a few minutes.

Frightened, Eddie tells Rose, "I wish Thomas were here."

"I am." He appears beside a tree.

"Is Granny May OK?"

"She will be. They are tending to her. It was a trick to rouse her and we had to go a round-about way to avoid the kitchen."

"Are we going to have to move?"

Thomas shakes his head, "I don't think so. It was only in the kitchen and the back hallway."

Nellie sits beside the children, "Thank god we built that fireproof room in the basement for all the really important."

Thomas nods, "I will be back in a moment. The fire brigade has left the house and I want to be sure it is entirely out. While I have sat through a rather spectacular house fire, I was already dead. It is not something I recommend for the living." He tours the house. It is safe. The kitchen is ruined, yes, and the hallway to the mudroom as well, but the bedrooms are intact and he cannot see any reason why the house will not be repairable. He checks on May and Maria. May is quiet and tired, leaning on her daughter, but she does not need to go to the hospital. The firefighters pack their gear. One asks where they can stay the night. Maria mentions that they have a camper and while it is not ideal, it will work. In the morning, they will start to clean and rebuild.

Nellie and Thomas take the children to the camper and they curl up together. Thomas sits beside them. Eddie is restless, Rose already in a deep sleep. Nellie makes coffee. May and Maria soon join them. May tucks into bed beside the children. Thomas kisses foreheads, even hers, and tucks them in to bed before joining Maria and Nellie at the tiny dining table.

"How did it start?" Nellie asks.

"They said someone left a towel on the stove- likely one of the kids. One of the burners was on 'warm'- it just took that long to go up in flames."

"We're lucky the alarm worked."

"No, we're lucky Thomas came around to all of us. You know May wouldn't have woken up at all if she hadn't have had him there to get her up.

Nellie sighs, "Yeah." She turns to him, "We owe you our lives."

"You owe me nothing. It is part of my debt, gladly repaid."

"You've said that a few times," Maria says, "that you have a debt. What does that mean?"

"When you find my diary, you will know."

Neither of them searches for it over the course of the next few months. They repair the kitchen, scrub the walls, and replace what was lost. But they do not think of the things in the room made of concrete and steel in the basement. The world of the living seems far more important than the possessions of the dead, at least for the present.


	26. Chapter 26

1993\. Eddie hates middle school. Rose, four years older, was her protection for her first few years of elementary school, and when she graduated to middle school, she always met her on the way home. But now, Rose is in high school. Eddie has to fend for herself. And it is not going well.

Her teachers try to engage her, hoping that keeping her busy will keep the other girls from picking on her. She is an awkward child, her messy black hair always tied back in a bun, her clothes dated. It is not that she doesn't have the means to go shopping, but rather that she is infinitely practical. Rose has clothes she can no longer wear, therefore there is no need to go buy new things. And she hates trying on clothes. But even the efforts of her teachers fall short. When they read about steam engines, she is fascinated. She seeks out new books on the subject and is often caught reading her library books instead of her classroom assignments. She explains, in great detail, the importance of this technology in her book report on a technical manual for a steam powered train. This becomes the fuel for teasing. But Eddie does not want to only read about steam powered things, she wants to build them. When she tells Thomas this, he takes her to the basement to a watchmaker's cabinet, a tool box, and a black lacquered trunk marked "Enola" that contains the most fascinating things made of turning cogs and gears that Eddie has ever seen. She is even more in awe of them when he lets slip that he made them.

But the fact that she has no friends and her closest living companions are her family members adds to her problems at school. There is another girl in her grade who believes in ghosts. She finds this out during English class when her classmate blurts out that maybe the ghosts in their stories aren't metaphors, maybe they are just ghosts. She becomes a target- the vicious nature of some of the other girls shines as they taunt her, their bullying escalating. Eddie thinks she may be able to reach her, and so, when she thinks it is safe, she confides in her that she, too, believes in ghosts. But her plan backfires. Soon she is the new favourite victim, the other girl spared by her willingness to turn on Eddie.

She knows her presentation on steam engines will only make things worse, but it is her approved science fair project and she cannot change it. She has rebuilt Thomas' miniature mining machine and, when she stokes the little firebox, the boiler puffs to life and it chugs along, moving the sand she has placed it in. She wins the fair, and carefully packs it in its box and hands it over to her teacher for safekeeping until Daisy can pick it up. On her way home, her tormentors knock her books from her hands, steal her backpack, empty it on the sidewalk, tear her sketchbook of steam powered machines, and beat her up. The principal happens to glance out his window at just the right time. He makes a list of names as he runs out the door. There will be some suspensions. Perhaps a few expulsions, if he can convince the school board.

They see him coming and they run. Eddie sits up and huddles against the fence, crying. Her sketchbook pages flutter by her.

"My god, Edith, are you OK?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"I'm the weird kid, that's what."

"Have they done this before? You act like you expect this." He starts picking up her pages.

"Not this bad, but yeah. It's not like this is the first time."

"Why didn't you tell me? I can't do something about it if you never say anything."

"Don't. It'll just make it worse. Then I'll be Eddie the crazy girl and a crybaby."

"This isn't how things should be."

"Well it's how they are. Nobody likes me. Can I go check on my steam engine? I want to make sure they didn't get it somehow. It was my great great grandma's- her friend made it."

"I'm calling someone to come pick you up. You're not walking home after this."

"I'll be OK, I promise." She tries to stand and falls back down, wincing, "OK, maybe not."

He helps her up and she tests her knee again. With a stabbing pain, it goes out from under her. He sits her back down. He gathers the rest of the papers and tucks them back in the backpack. He picks her up and carries her to the office, then he calls Daisy.

After a conference between her principal and her mother, Eddie is ready to crawl into a hole. She doesn't want anyone to talk to the kids who beat her up. She doesn't want it to get worse because she told. And she doesn't want the parents she knows will be angry at her for getting their kids suspended to glower at her when she sees them in the store. When she gets home, she closes herself in her room and cries into her pillow.

"Eddie? What happened?" Thomas sits beside her and gently strokes her back as he has done every time someone has tormented her at school.

"Nothing."

"You are lying."

"Go away."

"Despite my great respect for your requests, this is one I will not honour."

"I don't want to talk about it, OK? I screwed up by being nice to someone."

"How is that possible? Is it not ideal to be kind?"

"Only if other people don't beat you up for it."

"Eddie, you are going to have to explain- until now, all their taunting has been with words. I cannot be in all places and did not see. I had to keep track of Rose today- she was teasing boys."

"This girl said she believed in ghosts. She got bullied for it. So when we were alone, I told her I did, too. She told everybody and it all got worse for me. Nobody likes me anyway. What kid likes all this steam engine stuff? Today they beat me up and tore up my sketchbook."

He sighs, "I have few other children to compare you to. You are bright, you are kind, what more could one be? But I do know that others will be cruel to those they do not understand."

"I don't want to go to school anymore. It'll just get worse. You're lucky to be dead. Nobody makes fun of you."

"Eddie..." He wraps his arms around her.

"What's it like, being dead?"

Everything about the conversation raises alarms in Thomas' mind, "Why do you ask?"

"I dunno. I just want to know."

"Are you thinking...are you thinking of hurting yourself?" She does not answer. "You are far too young to join the dead, dear girl. Please, consider that this, too, will pass." She slips from his arms and leaves the room. Thomas fades out and watches her from a distance. She does her homework. She eats supper with the family. She goes to bed. Thomas does not let her out of his sight. He thinks that perhaps he should talk to Daisy, but this would mean taking his eyes off her. Once she is asleep, he considers it safe.

He appears in the kitchen where Daisy is sipping coffee and reading, "We need to talk."

"Good evening to you, too, Thomas."

"I spent a considerable amount of time talking to Eddie."

"She's had a rough day."

"It's not just today. This has been happening for longer. And she has said some things that concern me."

"Oh?" She sets down her cup.

"She asked me what it was like to be dead after she told me I was lucky to be so."

"Give her time. She's pretty shaky. The attack was vicious."

"They ripped her sketchbook?"

"I think that might have hurt even more than getting beat up."

He sighs, "I have a bad feeling, Daisy. I do not want to have to announce the death of another young person. I died far too early- there were so many things I could have done. But since, I have seen so many children die. Infants. Little people on toddling legs. Children at war. It has been heartbreaking. And I fear she is considering harming herself."

She studies his face, "You really think this, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What do I need to do?"

"Make sure this ends at school. She cannot keep feeling like this."

"I don't know how I'm going to convince her to go back."

"You can find a different school, can you not?"

"Yes. We can consider that."

"Do. Look at all the options. It may be the only way we avoid a tragedy."

"You've always been protective of us. I guess I should believe you. I don't want to, though."

"I need to return to her. She is so fragile."

"I know. I worry about her. I've never met a kid who was so interested in the stuff she likes."

Thomas smiles, "I have. Me."

"I know- she took your steam engine to school. It's back in the trunk. I picked it up when I went to get her."

"Given the damage to it from all its years of disuse, it was as much hers as mine. I told her nothing of its construction. She figured it out on her own."

"She's a brilliant kid- I just drew the thing. She made it tick."

"That she is. And bright minds feel the slights all the more deeply as they ponder what they did to deserve them."

"I'll be in a minute. Check on her, please?"

He nods and returns to her room. When he arrives, she is not in her bed. Worried, he checks the bathroom. But she is not there, either, nor is she with Rose. He finds her when he returns to her room- she is in her room, sitting in the corner, hidden by the furniture and the shadows. She has a pink plastic razor in her hands.

"Eddie?"

"Go away. You're glowing and messing up my focus."

"No." He sits beside her, wedged by the desk, "Talk to me."

"No."

"What are you doing with that?"

"Nothing."

"You can either speak to me or to your mother when she checks in on you in a few minutes."

"Oh god, not Mom."

"Then I suggest you speak to me."

"I can't go back to school."

"And so..."

"So I'm trying to figure out how to pry the blades out of this thing without cutting my fingers all up. Not that it'll matter much if I get them out, but it would make it really hard to hold the razor, you know?"

"Oh, Eddie..."

"Don't try to stop me."

"No, I know that isn't very realistic. If I do, you will simply continue when I cannot intervene. But I can tell you this...there are far too many things in this world that you will miss. Things I cannot do or have. The touch of a friend's hand warm against yours. The splendour of sunlight. The feeling of soft skin caressed by someone who truly, deeply, loves you- something you have not yet felt. Something I only was allowed once. Eddie, please. My heart breaks for what you would miss. For the beautiful feelings you have not yet had, for the touch of lovers you will never experience. For the brightness of your mind that this world will will be changed by as you think wonderful things into existence. I know you do not wish to hear any of this, but trust me, as one whose life was stolen far too young- and long before I died- there are things that will fill your heart, that will break it in two, that will change everything you know about being human, that you simply must experience."

She sets the razor down, "Really?"

"Yes. Really. You must trust me when I say that even the worst of us falls away when in the arms of someone who truly loves everything about you for the first time. In my case, for the only time. You know so little of my life...but if anyone should have died to end a childhood of suffering, it was I. And I nearly did."

"How?"

"My father. When you are older, ask your mother for my diary. It will explain everything."

"Oh. But did things turn out OK?"

He smiles, "In a strange sort of way...yes."

Eddie flicks the razor under the dresser, "Don't tell Mom, OK?"

"I won't. Unless I need to reveal it to keep you safe."

"Well, duh."

"My articulate little girl."

There is a knock on the door, "Eddie, are you asleep?"

"No."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure."

Daisy enters and finds them sitting in the corner, "Well that's not your bed."

"I know. But I was hiding."

"Gotcha. You need to come up and get some rest. We've got some big decisions tomorrow."

"I'm not going to school."

"I'll let you skip tomorrow."

"Ever."

"Well that's not really an option. But we'll talk about what we can do in the morning. Right now, you need to sleep."

Thomas rises and Eddie crawls to her feet. She gives him a hug and falls into her bed, exhausted. She is snoring within minutes after her mother kisses her goodnight. They step into the hall.

"What did she say?"

"She is deeply struggling with the idea of returning to school."

"That's all you're going to give me, isn't it?"

"Yes."

Daisy sighs, "You'd have been a good dad. You've always been a good listener. And no one keeps secrets like the dead, right?"

"Indeed."

"At least she's asleep."

He does not tell her that he thought she was before, too, "You must rest as well, dear Daisy. Tomorrow will be a long day for you as well, and you cannot simply power yourself with coffee."

"I sure can try, though."

"Go to bed. You will think more clearly. I will keep vigil."

"Always taking care of someone. Someday, I'm going to figure out who you were. You're pretty remarkable, even as a dead guy." She retrieves her book from the kitchen table and goes to the room she shares with Nellie. Thomas, invisible, returns to Eddie's room. As he has done since she was a child, waking with frequent nightmares, he lays down on top of her covers beside her and she curls against him. He does not sleep- that is not the way of ghost- but he closes his eyes and reminds himself just how little she still is- eleven, yes, but only eleven.

 


	27. Chapter 27

Eddie is still an emotionally fragile girl when she reaches high school. She spent a few years learning at home and, when she returns to school, it is to a neighbouring district. She is bookish and quiet, her free time spent alone in the library where she studies designs for steam powered things. Her favourite projects are those she can build and she always chooses the elective courses that allow her to create something. Daisy has built her a workshop in the lower level of the barn where she has a boiler and a drive shaft and all manner of steam driven tools, many of which she has built under Thomas' careful, but distant supervision. She has dragged his tools and his watchmaker's cabinet into her own space. Enola's trunk is always open and she studies his designs in earnest. They are elegant, functional, and fascinating.

She is seventeen when she determines for certain that she wants nothing to do with her peers. She attends the cast party for the high school play. As the set designer, she is someone they rarely saw, invited, but not really welcomed. After she is greeted by the hosts, she settles into a tacky green vinyl chair in one corner. The gathering is everything she imagined- loud, mindless, and accompanied by terrible music. She stays only because she has a slight crush on one of the understudies. The later the night gets, the more uncomfortable she becomes. Someone brings bottles of wine from the kitchen. Then another someone starts passing a joint around. And yet another someone opens a mint tin to share pills that have no label. The boy she is watching comes to talk to her for a little while, then brings her a drink. She trusts him. She should not. She is getting groggy as she watches other boys push themselves onto girls who look to be as woozy as she is. She passes out in the chair.

When she wakes at dawn, she is the only person not sleeping. There are half naked teenagers all over the room. She struggles to sit up, panic rising in her chest as she checks her own clothes. They are all where they should be.

A familiar voice comes from beside her, "You're safe. But I do think you should call for the authorities."

She turns and sees Thomas perched on the arm of her chair, "Have you been there all night?"

"Yes. And the young man you were watching- I believe he is called Ben?" She nods, "He had best not come near you again. He tried and I made myself as visible as I could. I believe whatever he took earlier in the night made my presence quite clear. His expression was amusing."

"Wait, are you telling me my crush tried to...?"

"I do not know. But I was unwilling to discover his intent."

She gathers her things, "Let's get out of here." She drives home as fast as the law allows, sometimes a little faster. As soon as she is in her front door, she calls the police and makes an anonymous report.

She hears rumours at school that the police found more drugs in the house than she ever saw. She determines there is no reason to socialize with her peers if they are just going to do stupid things. She returns all her attention to her tinkering. Her quiet, consistent life is what she wants, and the only excitement she wishes for is the excitement of discovery. She shares what she learns with Thomas. She sits at her workbench and he hovers over her shoulder, watching intently, asking questions as she works with wires and microcircuits, technology that makes her world run in the same way that steam did his. But the modern electric everything, wires so tiny they are printed, not hand run, cannot enchant her in the same way and Eddie always returns to Thomas' steam engines. There is something incredible and elemental about powering machines by belts and heat and water. She cuts wood for the pile when it dwindles, determined that there should always be the means to bring the boiler to a full head of steam.

The household does change, though, when May Ellen dies. One less voice at the table, and one more trip to Elmwood Cemetery. Eddie and Rose pay little attention to the funeral, their minds elsewhere, the cemetery a reminder of something they don't want to think of as a part of their future. May's brother, Richard, his son, Alan, and Alan's partner, Theodore, are faces they have only rarely seen and they feel awkward trying to converse with them. Instead, they huddle together at the cafe they stop in after her burial and pretend that there aren't other people around them.

Eddie's first relationship is an accident. She falls in step with a young man on the way out of her college chemistry class and feels obligated to strike up a conversation. He asks her to coffee. Within a few months, she is spending nights at his apartment. But things take a turn for the worse. He is controlling, he does not like when she disappears back home for the weekend without telling him, and he discourages the little gear-turned inventions that she often wants to bring over to show him. There is always an excuse. A friend's kitten. The project he has on every coffee table. The holiday decorating he never gets around to doing. Then he shoves her. Later, he slaps her.

Thomas does not like what he sees. He asks Eddie often if she is all right and she always tells him she is, that she can handle herself. That it is none of his business. But he cannot help himself. He watches. Rose causes far less worry. She rarely dates and when she does, she dates women. The ones she has dated have never wanted to control her. Thomas wonders if it has something to do with the area she studies. Perhaps fewer troublesome individuals populate the library sciences.

He always tells Eddie that he will respect her mind, her decision to stay, even if it hurts to watch. And she thanks him, even though she knows she is making a terrible decision. But when she misses a period, her boyfriend's rage is far greater than it ever has been and he punches her in the stomach before tossing her against a wall. He storms out of the apartment. Eddie pries herself from the floor, shuddering. Cool hands steady her.

"Slowly, dear girl."

"What the fuck just happened?"

"You know as well as I."

"But over a pregnancy test? I don't even have it yet."

"And what will happen if you are?"

She sighs, "He'll kill me."

"Gather your things. Leave, Eddie. Please, I beg of you. I cannot herald another young death."

"Yeah. I think I have to, don't I?"

"Have to what?" her boyfriend asks as he returns to the apartment.

She shrinks against the wall as she notices there is a gun in his hand, "Oh god, don't."

"Tell me what you have to do."

"Get the hell out of here."

"No, bitch, you're never leaving."

While Thomas knows this particular person probably cannot see him, or is not willing to see him, and he is not supposed to intervene in death, he once again finds himself desperately unwilling to merely observe. He remembers the feeling of the Japanese soldier passing through him, live grenade in hand, as her boyfriend raises his weapon. Thomas gathers all the ghostly strength he can muster to slam the hand holding the gun to the ground. Eddie grabs her bag and runs out of the apartment.

Surprised that he could do anything at all, Thomas wills himself seen and prays to whatever in the universe makes a person ready to see the dead to allow him just one moment. Eddie's boyfriend stares in horror as Thomas fades into view, glaring at him. He says nothing, just glowers, attempting to be as frightening as a dead man could be.

"What the fuck are you?" Thomas steps closer. "Get back!" He raises his gun. Thomas disappears.

Eddie hasn't stopped running and she does not stop until she is safely in her dorm room, every lock on the door fastened tight. She calls the police and tells them everything. And then she tosses herself onto her bed and cries. Thomas finds her. He stays even when the officers come to speak to her, invisible beside her, a hand on her back. And he is there all through the night until her room-mate returns.

The restraining order is enough to reassure Eddie for a little while, but a a few months later, he walks through it and attacks her in her dorm room. Thomas has been following Rose, but something tells him he needs to find Eddie- she is pinned to the bed when he arrives. His appearance is enough to scare, but not enough to get her ex-boyfriend to leave. Eddie calls the police once again while Thomas, now the target of his ire, draws him closer to the boiling electric kettle. He lunges and Thomas vanishes, slipping away to stand between him and Eddie. He stumbles onto the kettle and howls as the scalding water splashes on his chest. He staggers towards the bathroom she shares with the room next door. Eddie locks him in. When the police arrive, he is pounding on the door, screaming. They take her statement and arrest him as he blathers about ghosts. Thomas once again stays with her until her room-mate returns.

She is glad to graduate less than a month later so she can officially be done with the university. She returns to her family and her steam engines.

Not long after, family returns to her. A letter addressed to May Ellen McMichael arrives at the house. Maria opens it. Eliot's body has been recovered from a mass grave in Saipan. He will be arriving in the United States shortly and they would like to know where to bring him. Maria knows exactly what to do and in a few weeks, they fill the space that has been waiting for him in Elmwood for 59 years. Young soldiers fold the flag from his coffin and present it to his granddaughter. But the funeral is not only attended by the young. There are old men there, men who remember Eliot Carter Cushing McMichael as a skilled medic with a gentle way of reassuring even the most fatally wounded men that they were in good hands. These stories captivate the little family. None of them met him. None of them know much about him. But now he is a real person remembered by Marines and Midshipmen.

Thomas remembers some of these stories. But it is easy even for a ghost to forget and the words bring back so much from those few days in 1944. Beyond all, though, he remembers their first encounter, the young man visiting Allerdale Hall oh his sister's insistence who asked after that he not speak to his family. Thomas wonders what he would think of the fact that his granddaughter, great granddaughter, and great great granddaughter all have known him since their birth and have asked him to live so openly in their household. He hopes that he would be understanding.

Daisy, Eddie, Maria, Nellie, and Rose invite Richard, Alan, and Theodore to their house on their way home from the funeral, but they decline. Their journey to Traverse City is long and, though a rest might be nice, they want to be home before too late. They do agree to eat together, though, and to one final stop in Brush Park to the vacant lot where Edith and Alan's house once stood. There are a few fragments of brick scattered around the lot and Eddie picks one up to take home.

"You wouldn't remember it, Rose, but you met Edith- Eliot's mother- in this house. She was a lovely woman. Died the year you were born," Nellie tells her daughter.

Rose nods, not entirely interested. But Eddie is, and she tries to imagine what the house might have been like inside as Nellie describes the fireplace beside which Edith sat and read.

Daisy turns to her, "You look like you're thinking."

"Yeah. I never saw this place. Are there pictures?"

"I'm sure there are. All Edith's stuff is in the basement. And a good chunk of Charlotte's things. Some of my mother's stuff, too."

"I keep wondering what it was like to get that telegram."

"She kept a journal. She probably wrote about it."

"Do you think the telegram's there?"

"Might be somewhere- it came to Maria. May would have had it. I remember when the two officers came to the door to tell us that my brother was dead. The letter they brought with them is in Mom's stuff. So's the one they brought when Dad died. It's not the kind of thing you throw away, even if you never want to see it again. There's a reason Mom always said she's smuggle any of us to Canada if there was ever another draft."

"Didn't Eliot enlist?"

"Yeah. He wanted a choice. Dad did, too. But my brother didn't."

"That's a lot of people to lose."

"Mom had a little brother who died when he was just a baby, too. And Eliot's son drowned when he was three."

"Holy shit, has this family had a generation where nobody's died tragically?"

"Not until Nellie, Rose, and you."

"Wow."

Daisy lowers her voice, "Eliot's grandson, Alan, over there, was a twin. Max died when he was just a baby."

"Damn. That explains all the little lambs in the cemetery. Wait, what about Edith? She and Alan lived a long time, didn't they?"

"They did. I don't know how Thomas fits into the picture, but he's family somehow. And he looks like he was stabbed in the face- that would be pretty tragic. He'd be about the same age as them."

"Oh. Right."

"If you're interested in the family stories, we'll make a tree and go through the stuff downstairs. Mom never touched any of Edith or Charlotte's things. They died the same year; she just never felt up to it."

"Would any of Eliot's things be down there? I feel like I need to look into his military service, figure out where he was. I've never even heard of Saipan."

"Rich would have that. Let's ask him while we're here."

"Are you sure? I mean, we just buried his dad."

"It'll be OK." Daisy wanders over to where Richard is waiting, "Hey. Question for you." He raises an eyebrow, "Do you know much about your dad's military service? Eddie was asking me about it. Neither of us know anything about Saipan."

Richard shakes his head, "No, I don't. I knew he was in the Navy, but other than that...today's the first day I heard he was a medic. I was four when he died. There's a lot I don't know."

"Do you have anything that might help her look him up?"

"There's a box in the attic I can mail to you. I don't really care to go through it. I'd rather just keep moving forward. It's not like the dead can talk."

They all say their goodbyes and part ways.

Back in Stockbridge, Daisy brings her mother's boxes up from the basement and sets them out in the living room, "I don't know where you want to start, but this what I can probably help you the most with. There's a lot here. And this is all just my mother's stuff. This doesn't even touch Charlotte and Edith's boxes. I think Alan's papers are mixed in with Edith's."

"Let's start with a family tree. And then we're going to figure out what to do with all this. How to preserve it."

"Do we really have to, Ed? There's so much here... Just think of all the time this is going to take!" Rose protests.

"You're a library person, you're supposed to like organizing stuff."

"Yeah...stuff that somebody else already numbered and made a system for. I'm just the one who tends it's local incarnation. Seriously, though- do you know now many documents you've got just in this one box? There's got to be a few hundred..."

"Then I guess I'd better get started. Let's stack these by the drafting table in my room. I've got a lot of letters to read."

Daisy picks up a box, "I'll help you move these. Then we're drawing a family tree. It's hard enough to keep everybody straight when you do have one, no sense in starting off at a disadvantage wondering who the heck these people are Mom's writing to."

 


	28. Chapter 28

It takes three years to sort through and organize Anne, Charlotte, and Eliot's papers. Eddie has binders sorted by date, the letters in clear plastic slip covers so as to preserve the fragile pages. As Edith's boxes and a trunk are brought into her room, she looks over the shelves. She has digitized and transcribed the first binder only. There are so many stories in them. Stories she had never known, and details to the ones she did. But one thing missing in all of them is Thomas. She still has no idea who he is. He visits sporadically as she sorts through papers, but he says little.

As she sorts through the first box, she realises most of it is financial documents. Things they no longer need to keep. She pulls over a paper bag and begins carefully going through every scrap of paper. Receipts. Tax paperwork. Grocery lists written on the backs of envelopes containing bank statements. These all go in the bag. But then she finds something she did not expect. There is a large portfolio from the British Clay Mining Corporation and she unties the string binding it closed.

"Hey guys! Mom!" she calls.

Daisy and Maria enter, "What?"

"Did you know we apparently owe the big bank account to owning stock in some mining company? And there's a contract here for sale of an Allerdale Hall in England. It says a lot about our family getting money from the mines in perpetuity."

"But the family's American," Maria says, "I didn't think we'd have property in England."

Nellie arrives, "What about Thomas? He's a Brit, isn't he?"

"How is he related?" Eddie asks.

Maria shrugs, "I don't really know."

"There's nothing in the letters yet, mentioning him."

Daisy shakes her head, "I don't think there would be in anything she'd have been into real regularly- Mom said he was her childhood ghost, too. Check the trunk. It's super old."

"But that's going out of order."

Nellie laughs, "You're going to have to wait another year if you do everything in order! Besides, if it's older, shouldn't you go through it first?"

Eddie shrugs, "Eh, sure." She tries to lift the lid, but it is stuck fast, "Is this thing locked?"

Nellie opens a box, "This one says, 'dressing table'- maybe her keys are in here."

"This box is a mess- who packed it?" Maria asks.

"I did...or, well, I dumped the drawers into it so we could sell the dressing table," Daisy says, "It was just too big to bring."

They dig through the box. Nellie pulls out a tiny belt with porcelain clasped hands on the front. She sets it aside. They find Alan's shaving brush and straight razor, antique broaches, lovely lace gloves and others of fine cotton with buttons up the side. A shoe hook. A brush and mirror set. At the bottom, there are two rings of keys. The trunk key on one ring is engraved with the name Enola. The other key ring also has a trunk key, this one engraved E.C.. They try it and the mechanism grinds aside.

"So what do you think is in here?" Eddie asks before lifting the lid.

"Oh just open it already!" Daisy urges.

They crowd around her as she opens it. On the very top, there is a worn leatherbound book. Eddie sets it aside. Under it is black velvet. She unfolds it and hands it to Nellie, "What's this?"

"A gentleman's jacket," she inspects the stitching, "Hand sewn. Very fine. Very old, too, but in remarkable condition. I'd say turn of the century- probably a decade or so earlier. It's a bit dusty. Don't handle it much, the dust weight might rip it apart- I'll show you how to clean it." She carefully folds it and sets it aside.

Eddie grins, "God, it's gorgeous! Can I wear it?"

"Maybe. But it would be a better idea to use it as a study piece and reproduce it."

Maria picks up a small box, "This is a gorgeous pen. I wonder why she kept all this locked up. I never saw her use this, but it's the kind of pen you'd want to write all your letters with..."

"Or a manuscript." Eddie hands her a portfolio of loose handwritten pages, "It looks like she wrote a novel."

"Here's her marriage certificate- Edith and Alan Cushing. Look at this date- when was Charlotte born?" Daisy asks.

"Wasn't it 1902?"

"I meant more specifically, but yes."

"Well it looks like they may have had a shotgun wedding."

She looks at the other papers in the folder, "Here's a birth record- Charlotte. And Eliot. I think you're right. Unless the baby was born a couple of months early."

Maria is inspecting Carter Cushing's death certificate, "I've never seen a cause of death listed as a suspicious skull collapse. How would that even happen?"

Nellie lifts a fragile cardboard box out of the trunk while the others inspect the documents, "I think I have your answers."

"Oh? What did you find?"

"Hand me that book."

Daisy does, "What do you have?"

Nellie reads the first page of the diary, "I have the book of Thomas. And all the other things of Thomas." She pulls out the envelopes and opens them one at a time. Death certificates for Thomas and Lucille Sharpe. A letter in a very battered envelope. A marriage certificate. A letter from Edith to Charlotte, never sent. A newspaper clipping announcing the death of Lady Beatrice Sharpe. And three very old envelopes with information in them on three women. The box also contains a little clothbound book containing a few dozen pages of handwriting.

Daisy reads the battered letter, "My god... You guys have to read this. And then I think we need to call Thomas."

Eddie lays out the three very old envelopes and pulls out their contents, "Pamela, Margaret, and Enola...hey, her trunk's in the attic." She takes the letter from her mother and reads it, "What the ever living fuck?"

Nellie takes her turn and passes the fragile newspaper clipping to Daisy, "Well this is interesting."

"Interesting is putting it mildly," Maria retorts, handing Nellie the letter addressed to Charlotte.

After all the documents have made their way around, Eddie opens the clothbound book in Edith's handwriting and reads it out loud, " _Charlotte is tiny. Thomas visited her tonight in her cradle. I also received a letter of confession...I need to start a diary so that my thoughts on him can stay there instead of occupying my mind. There are far too many other things I must do to take care of this child. I cannot have the dead haunting my thoughts as well as my house."_

The four women stare at the book, "Thomas was Edith's first husband," Nellie says.

"And Charlotte's father," Maria adds.

Daisy takes a deep breath, "And that makes him my great grandfather."

"And he sent Edith one hell of a confession letter...these women...I don't get this. He's always been amazing with us, never murdery," Eddie says.

"It was his sister who was murdery, according to this letter," Daisy waves the page.

Nellie holds up the leatherbound diary, "So who wants to read this first?"

Eddie reaches for it, "I do."

Maria sighs, "Rose is never going to believe all this."

"Yeah, imagine what she's going to say when she finds out," Eddie adds, "One of you gets to tell her."

"But you're the family historian," Daisy kids, "that makes it your job."

"Yeah, nope. But we've got a little while before she's back from grad school. They work 'em hard there. Let's try to get through his diary first."

That night, Eddie makes herself tea and tucks into bed with the diary. Thomas sits in the corner of her room, unseen, terrified that he will lose everything now that they have discovered the papers. He hoped they would read the diary first, before finding out about the murders. His mind is racing as he tries to think through which of them will have too much difficulty with his past, who will deny him the delicate place in the family he has achieved. Then he turns his attention back to Eddie. She turns pages, reading.


	29. Chapter 29

1875- Entry 1

My name is Thomas Sharpe. Tomorrow, I will be eight years old. I think I am going to die.

We used to celebrate, but this year we will not. I know this because Father has said so. No son of his will be soft, and only soft men celebrate with frivolity and cake. So there will be nothing for me. He says I must get used to a life of disappointment, but I must also never cry.

He would beat me were he to see me writing this down as women do, keeping a diary of my thoughts. But I have far too many thoughts to keep them only in my head.

Father taunts me always for being womanly, but I cannot help that I am slender and pale. My sister says she has always thought of me as a porcelain doll, delicate and graceful, something she must be careful to keep from breaking. Perhaps this is why she frequently takes punishment for things I have done, even if they are things I did not know were wrong. She has said she cannot stand the sight of bruises on my skin, but I do not think she knows how hard it is for me to see them on hers.

But I must hide this. I think someone is coming.

1875- Entry 2

I tried not to remind Father of my birthday, but Lucille did by accident. I said nothing and tried to pretend that I was not excited to be another year older. There is something about survival, though, that keeps us all looking forward to the next day, no matter how terrible it will be. He has promised to take me on a hunting trip to celebrate my progression into manhood. I am terrified what this means. I do not wish to kill anything, but more frightening is what he might do to me.

1875- Entry 3

This is Lucille writing. Thomas has been missing for days. Father does not seem concerned. Nor does Mother. I am very worried. I have begged our nurse to look for him. She does not dare take it up with Father. Tonight, I will tell Mother that if she does not, I will do something terrible. I do not know what. Were I to run away, they would not care.

He is only eight. This is not fair. If he dies, I will have to do something drastic. Perhaps kill Father. No one would know the difference if he disappeared in the mine. I, for one, would welcome it.

1875- Entry 4

Lucille again. Thomas has been found, but he is near death. I do not know if he will survive the night. Father abandoned him on purpose, I just know. It was the mine men who found him. One of the cooks was worried enough to mention his disappearance to her husband and he organized a search party. The poor child was starving, dying from lack of water, and so cold.

I swear on all ten of my years that if he dies, I will make sure this house burns. May Father and Mother die in flames. It will not matter to me if I do as well or not. Without him, there is nothing.

1875- Entry 5

I have returned to the living. I did not think I would. It has been weeks since I last wrote. Lucille is right to assume that he abandoned me. I cried for hours when I realised he would not return. This cannot be how most families love one another. There are books in the nursery that talk of mothers and fathers crying for their children or looking after them for years after death, making sacrifices in the world of the living and that of the here-after. And yet...I cannot help but think that my parents would kill me themselves if they did not think anyone would know.

Given what I feel daily, I am not sure that I would mind. At least their disgust with me would be clear for all to see.

1875- Entry 6

I do not know how to talk about what has happened tonight. Lucille and I sneaked into the library to look for a rather naughty book- we are children, after all, and curious. But there had been an accident in the mines and Father was in a fury. When Lucille was discovered, she motioned for me to stay hidden. I have never seen him so terrible. When it was clear, I ran to our attic. I could hear her screaming as he whipped her. I made her a paper moth- she loves them so, perhaps it would make her feel a little better. When she returned, she was sore, her eyes red. She said he told her to say horrible things in front of Mother. I do not want to write what. There are some secrets that should burn with these walls.

She says we are horrible children. Both of us, but especially her. But why would I be so bad? I try to be good, but what can I do to change what they do to us? When I told her this, she said that it was my fault she was whipped- that the maid had told me about the books and that she had been searching on my request. That isn't true. I never asked any such thing. Perhaps she said it so I would seem more manly. I am only eight, though, and while the subject of sex is fascinating, it is not something I am particularly interested by in any way other than academic.

I asked her again why I am not good- does it make me good that I am so sorry that she was hurt? Does it make me good that I had made her a present to make her feel better? But she says no, it does not. If I were a good child, they would not want to send her to Switzerland to get away from me forever so she could take church vows. If I were a good child, they would not be so eager to send me to boarding school. But I cannot stand the thought of being without her. I told her I would do anything to keep us together, even pushing Father into the mine and blowing it up over him. We are the only family we have.

She has vowed to kill anyone who tries to separate us. I don't think she believed I could push Father into the mine, but when she said this...I believed her.

 


	30. Chapter 30

1877- Entry 1

How many children can say that at age ten, they have twice faced death?

I can. My father put his hands around my neck and sought to strangle me, shaking me in disgust and frustration. I felt the world darkening, my vision blurring as he crushed my throat.

Lucille says the bruises are quite extensive.

Mother stopped him, but I do not think it was out of any love for me. It was likely Lucille's screaming that ended it. They have never wanted their cruelty to be known outside the house and she would have attracted attention. She was, of course, beaten for saving me. Or for screaming, but it is the same thing, is it not?

My sister is my salvation, but she may yet be killed for it when his hand falls heavily upon her.

Did I write that Mother has had her leg broken? Father did it. He stood on her leg until we heard it snap. We are used to seeing her tossed about, thrown against walls, thrown down the stairs, but this was something far worse.

Lucille says that this is not how men and women should be together. She has asked that we pretend, that we practice, for when we leave the house and find ourselves in the world. We will need to know that this is not normal, won't we? That the way our parents treat one another is terrible. She tells me that I should pretend to be the gentle husband she will search for and she will pretend to be the kind wife I will seek and we will be equals in all things. It is a lovely thought, but do people behave in this way? She says they do, and that sometimes even wives command their husbands because sometimes one person can have power over the other, but only if it is granted freely.

She is distraught that he nearly killed me. I have tried to tell her that I will be fine, that this is nothing worse than what Mother has endured for years, but she does not believe me. She tells me that we will take care of things once and for all when I am feeling better.

1877- Entry 2

It has been a month since Father tried to kill me and I am feeling mostly better. My throat still aches on occasion, though.

Lucille has been asking the maids about plants. I do not entirely know why. But she also says that she has been taking Father his tea. He requested that she begin to act like a lady and that serving the men in her life is the first step in that. She tells me that her plan is in action, but I do not see it.

1877- Entry 3

Lucille asked me to the stables very early in the morning. Father hunts in an hour. She had me hold the lantern for her, as it is the only thing she thinks I am well enough to do. His saddle was made ready for him. His horse did not protest when she approached. She had a knife and I wondered if she sought to injure the horse. She did not. Instead she severed straps on his saddle, just a few and we left.

I do not know what this all means.

1877- Entry 4

We have hidden since we sneaked into the stables. Father was coughing rather violently, to the point of losing his bearings, before he mounted the horse. Then he rode off to meet his fellow hunters. She says we will wait. We are back in the nursery, watching out the high windows. She wonders how he will return. I think she is instead wondering _if_ he will return.

1877- Entry 5

Father has still not returned and it is nearly nightfall. She says this means her plan must have worked. There are horses on the horizon. Someone is coming.

1877- Entry 6

Mother is in black. Lucille wears her best dress. I am in a suit. We have just returned from the most unpleasant funeral that I can imagine. There were no eulogies for Father indicating any eternal rest or heaven, but instead only general statements and a priest railing on the need for repentance. Our family is wicked. Perhaps I was born wicked. How could we be anything else, given how our parents hate us?

Lucille says that we might find some happiness now that he is gone, but I have seen the look of bitterness and harshness in Mother's eyes and I do not believe this will ever end for us.

1877- Entry 7

I was right.

 


	31. Chapter 31

1878- Entry 1

Lucille has taken playing at love farther than I am sure it ought go, but what can I say in protest? She has reminded me of the many times she paid the price for my misdeeds and still continues to. I am to give her something in return for the bruises on her skin, some tenderness in exchange for the brutality. I am eleven. She is thirteen, her body becoming more womanly, and she has needs she wants met that I do not. But still, I will submit to her will. She has always loved me.

And she has been the only person who has not thought I was best off dead. I am eternally grateful, eternally hers, even if this feels so terribly wrong.


	32. Chapter 32

1879- Entry 1

Mother found us together. We are monsters in her eyes. There is nothing we could ever say to make this better, to make her less disgusted, to save ourselves from the fate she has in store for us, whatever that is. She will separate us forever, that much is certain, whether through death or by other means. I have considered burying myself in the mine, never to surface. I am twelve. Is this something any twelve year old boy should feel? Do others love their sisters in this way when they have no one else to love them? Or when their sister asks for recompense for years of shielding, a bit of gentleness in compensation for the abuses taken out of protection and love?

Had our parents loved us at all, would I have sought her shelter and she the touch of skin in her bed, now shared? Would I have resisted more fiercely had she still asked?

1879- Entry 2

Lucille has been locked away from me. I am distraught. But there was no whipping. I think that was saved for Lucille. She is older, so mother assumed it was her idea entirely and that I was unwilling...which was true, at least in the beginning. But now? It is love, and something I have never felt, even if it is dreadful as well. I would have gladly told Mother that it was payment for years of kindness I never had from anyone else, but she would not have listened. I am not sure if it would have made things any better for her to know that my willingness was only because of the abuses she and father visited upon us.

1879- Entry 3

Mother is dead. Lucille is covered in blood. I am stunned. She dragged me from my solitude to see what she had done and to watch the black moths come for Mother's soul. I do not understand where she learnt this, but it was something she felt so strongly would happen that we sat for the better part of the day beside her corpse in the bath, the smell of iron on the air, waiting. But they never came. There were no moths, not even those that usually flutter through the house. I do not know what to think, but Lucille says I should never tell anyone what she has done. She will scrub herself and burn her clothes so she will not be caught. But I suppose I should have thought she could do this- she did say she would kill anyone who tried to tear us apart. She never said there was an exception for our parents. And she has now killed them both.

Something changed in my sister when the moths did not arrive. As though her entire view of the world shifted when she realized that our mother's soul was not going to leave this house. That she is trapped here, and we are still trapped by her. I do not know if we have souls. Lucille says we must, for otherwise what would be the difference between a corpse and a living being? I have never thought about this much. But at the same time, she has said that there is no hell, for what could be worse than our father? And heaven would be anywhere but here. Where, then, do souls go when they leave us and why are they not cluttering up the world? Or do they cycle back into new babies with each birth?

They will take us from one another for certain if they find out. Possibly if they don't. Thinking that they will leave two young people- fourteen and twelve- alone in a manor such as this, is foolish. They will separate us, and then what will she do?

1879- Entry 4

They know. The cook found her. And everyone knows we were the only people in the house when it happened. They likely suspect us both. Would they believe that it was not me as well? And was it? Lucille defends herself through lies. This is a pattern, I have seen it. If something happens and she cannot fathom it, she goes backward until there is an action not her fault and rebuilds the story from there. Other people are always to blame, no matter now untrue.

They are sending her to an asylum. Some place they think she might recover from whatever it is that caused her to kill Mother. I think they know that our lives here were brutal and she was not entirely unjustified. Otherwise, she would hang.

As would I. But instead they are sending me to Aunt Florence, my mother's sister. I am not sure she will want me in her house, knowing my sister has killed hers. Perhaps she will be kinder in her rejection than her sister.

1879- Entry 5

Boarding school. She is sending me to boarding school. But I cannot complain- there will be time to think, time to read. It will be calm and warm. And perhaps someday, I will see Lucille again. I hope she is faring well in the asylum and they are not too cruel to her there.

I hope they are not too cruel at the school. But how could they be worse than my own father? If they are terrible, it will still seem like relief after years of living with our parents.

The semester has already started, but I will be attending Saint Andrew's by the end of the month.

 


	33. Chapter 33

1880- Entry 1

I have survived my first term at Saint Andrew's School for Boys. This is the first day of my second term. I was so busy during the first that I did not write. But there are a few things I should put down so I can remember just how different my life here has been from that in Allerdale Hall.

I keep to myself, mostly. Being new, not having attended since the early days, I am a bit of an outsider. This, of course, means I am teased a bit by the other boys, sometimes because I seem girlish or graceful or that I do not seek to excel in sport. I prefer books and the silence of the library. But none of their teasing is intolerable or even close in its vitriol to that of my own parents and I am never whipped. So I endure quietly. And this, of course, means they sometimes stop quickly, knowing it will get no rise from me. Though once one boy did move to slap my back in jest during these little taunts and I flinched so violently that it brought laughter from the others. I gathered my spilled papers and books and left quickly. One boy asked what was wrong and followed me. I will here record what happened next.

"Thomas! Hey! Come back!"

But I did not, I kept walking, briskly, towards the library.

"What happened to you?" He asked this from a distance, but I could hear from his footsteps that he was fast approaching. I could go no faster without running, but he is older and quicker than I. He caught up and stopped me only when he could stand directly in front of me and block my path. He placed a hand in front of him and caught my shoulder. I jerked away.

"Don't touch me."

"Whoa...Tom...what's going on? You get beat a lot at home?"

I decided that this boy, Luke, who had showed some kindness to me before, deserved the truth, "Yes."

"Dad? Mum?"

"Both. Unless my sister took the blame, and then they whipped her all the harder. And my father tried to kill me more than once. After his death, my mother took up the cause until my sister drove a cleaver into her head. She is in the asylum. There is a reason I take my mail in private." He just stared, aghast, "Now may I please pass? The library is quiet and will give me the space to think and let the terrifying memories pass by in solitude."

And he did. But the teasing never again became physical. When it did, when someone moved to shove me, Luke would give a look of warning, or put out an arm, or block it himself, and it would end. I asked later what he said and he told me he only revealed that my home life was brutal and I needed the peace here. I dare not say that I have made a friend, but I at least have someone with whom I have an alliance and that is more than I have ever had, besides with Lucille.

There are many subjects that I am behind in and I sometimes sit with younger students. It is why I did not return home for Christmas holiday. There were teachers who were willing to guide me in intense catching-up studies during those weeks. Aunt Florence sent me a few gifts- the first gifts I have had on Christmas since I was a very small child. They were practical. Money for books, a few sweaters, and a tin of sweets. And a very warm, very large scarf, a beautiful tartan pattern of browns. I am wearing it now. It very nicely wards off the chill in the dormitory and in the library.

The library is delightful, perhaps the most amazing discovery I have ever made. When I first arrived, I would not go there unless given permission by one of my teachers to research, but then I had to write a paper and no one directed me where to go, so I panicked. I could not bring myself to simply go to the library with my peers, so I waited for my professor after class and very nervously asked permission. He chuckled and said of course, this is what he expected of us. But when he saw my expression, he asked what it was that made me think I had to ask to visit the library. I told him that my father did not permit us in his library and the one time he had caught my sister there, he had whipped and degraded her so soundly that I did not dare trespass where books were held again. He was aghast.

It was then that I experienced the miraculous. He told me that the library was here for students, all of us, to use whenever we felt the need. We did not need permission. I did not need to fear being told I was not allowed there, unless I was caught there instead of in class. Everything in those volumes was available to me. And with that, my entire world changed. It is where I am writing now. I spend nearly every spare moment here, reading whatever I can, from one end to the other. I will read this entire room if I am given the chance.

Thusfar, my greatest fascination has been in engineering. There are engines that run on steam, that can power great machines and trains, boilers and factories, lumber mills and even heating the homes in entire cities while providing their electric power. I wonder- have they yet made things that will power the mines? Eliminate the need for workers, who so easily are crushed by the falling earth or die from poisons in the rock? If not...I could do it. I could make something that will work, that will bring back a stable life for Lucille and I, if only I can learn how this power is harnessed.

I believe I know what I will be studying in my spare hours.

1880- Entry 2

I have spent enough time in the library that the librarian not only knows my name, but has started to pull books he thinks I might be interested in so they are ready when I next arrive.

He has heard there is a position for a page in the university library in a nearby town. He has recommended me for the position because I am running out of engineering books in our own library and he knows that working there, I will have money to send for more advanced books and I will have their books to peruse in my free time. He has said he will even recommend that I be able to take books back to Saint Andrews for further study. It is a dream come true.

And I am only thirteen. Could there be a better job for a young man of my age, stature, and interests? I do not think so. Not, at least, until I understand the mathematics of steam engineering thoroughly enough that I can build my mining machine.

 


	34. Chapter 34

1883- Entry 1

I am sixteen. There have been many changes in my life since my previous entry, but most of all, I have watched the other boys discover love. I see their pursuit of the girls from a nearby girl's school and wonder if this is something I will be allowed. Lucille is still living, and she has vowed to kill anyone who tears us apart- were she to be released, would she hunt any lovers I chose to take as well? Would she seek out any woman or child I had cloven to and sever that tie? I think she might. I would like to think better of her, but her desperation and madness, I fear, has only been amplified by her time away. Her letters demonstrate this quite clearly.

She often writes in code, though I do not know why. Perhaps her letters are being read by those who hold her. Her code is becoming more complex, and even deciphered, her writing is often nonsensical. I fear she has deteriorated with confinement.

But what is love, other than that which has made Lucille and I monstrous? And should I wish for it at all? The other boys seem happy, as though this pursuit, with all its heartbreak, is worth every pound of gold in the world. They speak of futures with wives, children, laughter, and homes bright with success as their own parents have had, success that has allowed them to attend Saint Andrew's.

I stand in stark contrast.

I do not like the thoughts in my head, those that lead me to think I have only a future alone or, if she is ever freed, with Lucille.

God, if he exists, may he have mercy.

1883- Entry 2

I have been offered a place at the university to study engineering, should I want to pursue it. It would make me immensely happy to have this opportunity. What other use will there ever be for Allerdale Hall than a mine manor? I should like to see it restored someday, perhaps gutted and rebuilt so that the mining families could stay there to be closer to their men during the work season, everything about it that reminds me of Father stripped and burned.

1883- Entry 3

I received a letter today from the asylum. Lucille has been released. It was nearly a week ago that they freed her. I fear she will come for me.

1883- Entry 4

My fears were entirely founded. She arrived today and begged me to leave Saint Andrew's and return with her to Allerdale Hall, to care for it, to care for her. But we have no fortune, no money, and I had to convince her that one of us must work so that we do not starve. I sent her with every penny I saved from my work in the library, a considerable sum. It was to send me to university, but she has denied me that. I asked her, no, begged her, to consider that I could make us far more comfortable a life were I to advance my studies, gain a degree, seek out work on one of the steel projects rising above our cities- the bridges, the buildings taller than any that have ever been built... Or to find work in the great steam driven factories, those great hives of industry. There are rumours of an Exhibition planned in America in 1892 that will be greater than any the world has ever known, though they have not announced where or what. It will celebrate the four centuries since Columbus landed there. They will certainly need those with big ideas to build their magnificent city and it will pay handsomely. We could move our lives to America, find our fortunes, marry well, and bring the Sharpe family name the honour that our father denied it.

This idea frightened her. She made me promise two things- that I would return to Allerdale Hall after my studies at Saint Andrew's and that I will never leave her- nay, that I will never fall in love. She threatened to end her life if I break either of these promises and, try as I might, I cannot bring myself to tempt fate. So I gave her the money I had saved and declined the place at the university with the excuse that I must care for my ailing sister. They were kind and invited me to apply myself there at any time in the future. If she ever allows it, I will. I do not think this likely.

I, Thomas Sharpe, Baronet, have decided my fate at the age of sixteen, and it is a dismal one indeed. There is no hope in Allerdale Hall, only death and those damned black moths.

 


	35. Chapter 35

1887- Entry 1

I am twenty. We are starving and always cold. There is nothing left in our coffers, the house has begun to collapse in upon itself. There is a hole in the roof and it rains inside when it rains out. The land here yields little and I have never grown vegetables before this year. I correct myself- I did not grow very many of them very well this year, either, so saying that I grew them is perhaps incorrect. I watched most of the plants wither and die and my efforts proved rather worthless, but they did bear a few fruits. Mostly greens. But neither did it fill our stomachs nor provide us with any comfort on the long nights when they ached from emptiness.

Lucille brings me often to her bed. I can no longer stand this, the look in her eyes dreadful when she delights in this...this...

It is not what others do, and she is insistent that she is the only love that I can ever have. I dream of bigger things and a world beyond, a world I tasted only the tiniest sliver of during my studies. But I dream of London. Of Paris. Of anywhere but these forsaken grey fields.

When we were children, Lucille would tell me that there was no heaven, no hell, greater than what man alone could create. That we lived in hell and were made into demons from our time in this Hall. We could never escape it, no matter how often we tried to seek heaven. I did not believe her once I saw that there was life outside of ours. Where people celebrated Christmas and saw me worthy of simple gifts and kindness. Where birthdays were for celebration, not scorn. In time, I thought that heaven would be within my reach.

After she returned, everything was different about her beliefs. The black moths did not come for Mother because the souls of the damned are dragged straight to hell if they do not repent on their deathbeds. There are few righteous enough to be admitted to heaven. The rest wander the earth or are left in purgatory for all time, a sort of perpetual torment in that it is ever-waiting for a possibility of redemption that will never come. If Mother was wicked, so, she has reasoned, must we be, for we are the product of two evil people and the sin of the father is passed to his children. We are hopeless creatures, and even our repentance would only lead us to purgatory or wandering the earth, but never to heaven. We cannot join the saints.

Whomever at the asylum taught her this did so thoroughly, for she has preached it to me as she took me to her bed, telling me that if we are damned souls, we ought to act our natures, succumbing to lust and depravity.

I dread nights. This is no longer repayment for years of protective love. This is cruel. But I still cannot bring myself to leave her.

Perhaps if we starve to death, she will leave me alone after.

1887- Entry 2

Lucille has come up with a plan so that we may live a bit longer in this decrepit hall. She says that I cut a handsome figure and there will be other women who believe the same, that it should not be hard to ensnare a young woman of means, to return here to Allerdale Hall, and to kill her before I must consummate the marriage. She says this is critical, that I must not have sex with anyone else, for if I do, I will certainly leave her for the other woman.

By god, I want to. I should have never agreed to return home, and were she to kill herself, I would at least be free of this...but I did not. I cared too much, as always, and I am here, and she is my master. Dear god, let there be a miracle...

Lucille's obsession with sex, or the lack of it outside of us, must be the result of our father's insistence that all women are whores and she was destined to it as well. Whores did all sorts of things Lucille wanted to do. They spoke up. They questioned. They were inquisitive. They wore gowns that showed off skin, painted their faces, looked men in the eyes. Whores did not know their place. And all these things were hurled first at our mother and then at my sister. It is no wonder she believes strange things about sex.

I cannot fathom how living here will not end in a noose for both of us. She assures me it will not. That no one will know about the women who disappear. She will make sure of it. It still feels so horribly wrong. But if it is our only way to survive...is it?

Yes, it must be. It would be better that we die instead of stealing someone else from this world.

My mining machine is nearly ready. I need money for parts, to construct it, to test it beyond this toy I have cobbled together from pieces of pipe, of clockworks, of bits forged over a hot stove from bits of tin. She says we will travel to London to seek financing and, while there, we will find a bride. I do not like this. I do not wish to kill anyone. But she says I will not have to, and she will make it clean, so that it appears the woman has died a natural death on these brutal fields.

1887- Entry 3

Lucille has chosen my wife. Her name is Pamela Upton and she is a delightful young woman. A bit flighty, but bright, beautiful, and a marvellous pianist. She has no family and is enthralled by the mystique of living in England's more wild places. I regret ever meeting her.

1887- Entry 4

Pamela and I were married on Thursday and returned to Allerdale Hall after a brief honeymoon to the south of France. Winter is setting in. There are no others out this far, the fields windswept and barren. Lucille makes tea and warns me not to drink it, but still to take it and to mock that I do. Lucille will not allow me to keep my bed with my wife. After she is asleep, I am to come to her room so my sister can have me until morning. There are always excuses, and the tea makes dear Pamela tired.

She was right when she was younger- there is no hell like the one we create. I dread every evening, and the days grow darker both in the season and in my heart as I watch this beautiful girl deteriorate, her lungs weakening from that infernal tea. I wish I had the courage to tell her what is happening, but I fear Lucille enough to stay silent.

1887- Entry 5

It will not be long before Pamela dies. Lucille has asked that I help her dispose of the body after. But I do not want to think that far ahead. I have never seen a person die. I have seen them dead, for certain, but the process? That is frightening. I do not want her to die. I do not want to believe that I have killed her, but I have.

1887- Entry 6

She is gone.

I did not love her, no, but still...there is something deeply terrifying about watching another person die. She asked for me, for my hand. For a final kiss, which I gave, my heart breaking for her, love or no. And I cannot look in the mirror without calling myself wicked.

She faded so slowly. Her lungs tried, poor, ragged things, to keep working, but there was so much blood every time she coughed. After her last kiss, she gave up turning back over and just lay face-down on the pillow when she could not stop, resting her head sideways in her own blood when she did so she could look at me. It was matted in her hair, the clots smudging her cheek... I will never forget the fear on her face as she struggled for a few final moments and then was gone.

I hope she is at rest. I am haunted enough by my life; I do not need the dead to take part as well.

1887- Entry 7

The glee with which Lucille took me to her bed that night deeply disturbs me. I am grieving. She is celebrating. She asks that I join her happiness, that I worship her as my queen beneath the sheets, and yet, while I act the part, I cannot help feel as though a little of my own soul has died and she is killing a little more of it.

I pray the money does not run out quickly.

 


	36. Chapter 36

1890- Entry 1

The mining machine is progressing nicely. There are still many pieces left to put in place, but I have devised a list of what it will cost and what pieces I think I will need. The plans are extensive, a work of art themselves. Lucille does not understand this, but the clean line of a draftsman's pen holds beauty just as much as that of the man who sketches portraits.

There is so much to do- we must figure out how much coal this will need, and if we can afford it. I tell her that the mines will treat us well when it works and she reminds me that if it works, it still must be financed, and that requires more money than we have. We have budgeted well, but it will still run dry in a few years if we cannot find someone to finance it. She is planning on visiting Edinburgh next.

Lucille has decided that my next wife should be an older woman- someone with means, but for whom death does not seem so foreign an idea. She says that will make her passing easier for her to accept and less difficult for me. I do not know. I am hoping someone will finance my machine and we will not need to find out. But Lucille brushes this off and I wonder- does she not believe in this project? Does she think my invention so worthless that it will not yield and we will otherwise die? Or is this a game for her? Does she enjoy the process of slowly stealing a life, one sip of tea at a time?

I would not wish to believe the worst of her, but I have seen her after the deed is done and I cannot shake the feeling that it might be the latter.


	37. Chapter 37

1893- Entry 1

There is no bank in this city that will accept this idea.

So we begin again. Margaret McDermott. She is many years my senior. We marry on Sunday after mass. She wants to be well cared for in her age and she thinks a baronet must be able to do so. I do not think she will be impressed when she sees the crumbling edifice of Allerdale Hall.

1893- Entry 2

Margaret is not as strong as Pamela and the tea has taken its toll on her so much faster. I cannot bear to watch. She is older, yes, but when I met her, she was sharp-witted and delightfully funny. Now she is cold nearly all the time, her fingers turning blue in the chill. I wrap her in blankets, I keep mittens and gloves throughout the house for her, and I am as gentle as I can be. I have tried to discourage the tea when I can, but it is warm and she craves that in her hands. She will be gone soon.

1893- Entry 3

Lucille says Margaret will die today. I do not know. I hate watching her weaken. I am not at Allerdale Hall and I do not plan on being so until quite late. I am out riding.

My thoughts, however, are with heaven and hell, guilt and betrayal, and the ever-present accusation of our mother that we are monsters. I cannot help but believe we are- if we were not then, we have become so now. And yet I also feel as though I need to be rescued, as the damsels in the old children's stories. I know there must be a way out of this, but I cannot see beyond Lucille. Can monsters be rescued, or are they always slain by the knight in white?

Some days, I wish my sister would drink her own damn tea.

I am not looking forward to tonight.

1893- Entry 4

She was excited to deposit Margaret's body in the clay. I was fighting the urge to cry. Or to hit her until she screamed that she hated me. Hatred would be better than this, if this is love. There is something of my father in me, after all.

But with the night, Lucille was, as last time, the gleeful and giddy girl she was long ago. This is how we are. She grows sour and morose, intense and demanding, our nights sometimes painfully rough, when I have a wife. Then, once she is gone, there is girlishness and a wish to play and to please, to flirt and to explore.

I have suggested once and only once that she consider marrying so that she and her husband can be so playful every night, letting me find myself a suitable bride as well, but she screamed at me that I had betrayed her with the very thought. I had promised never to fall in love, hadn't I?

I had forgotten that. I am twenty-six. I made that promise a decade ago out of desperation. But she remembered. She remembers everything.

I hope that the mining machine, now sitting in pieces in the house, will work as soon as I put it together. That there is enough coal to feed it. That my design is good and that it works, a steam powered dragon pulling treasure from the depths. That the clay is rich and beautiful still, ready to build cities the world over. That someone believes me when I tell them this. That there are no more bodies to deposit in the clay.

I cannot help but feel as though everything is too late for me. I missed the great Columbian Exposition, the gathering of brilliant minds in that wondrous American city of Chicago. There were articles about it in the papers in Edinburgh. Sketches of beautiful glimmering buildings built on the plans of the innovator, Burnham, and landscapes that transported visitors out of the city in a moment designed by the great Olmsted. And amidst all this, Ferris built his wheel, Tesla cast electricity through the air, and the hall of machinery chugged with such a great din that there were few who dared explore it- I would have been in my element, hearing be damned. The whole world descended upon the White City. But not me.

I was luring a woman to her death in the grey of Edinburgh.

What hope is there for me in this?

 


	38. Chapter 38

1896- Entry 1

I am twenty-nine. I am in Milan. I am fervently praying to a god I do not know (but who seems to be quite fond of Italy, if sculpture, architecture, and the prevalence of churches is any indication) that there will be no more bodies in the mines. Lucille has been making the rounds as a society woman, her striking red dress attracting attention wherever she lands. She is beautiful, that is true, but she is beautiful as a spider is. It is frightening, really, to see how easily she blends herself into her surroundings. I do hold some admiration for my sister, in particular for her skills of adaptation. Were she not so broken, she could be brilliant. Perhaps she would study chemistry, or medicine, if she allowed it. Her mind is at least as sharp as mine, if not moreso.

1896- Entry 2

Once again, the banks have denied my request.

Enola Sciotti. Vibrant. Boisterous. She has little family, but a large circle of friends. She is well loved. We will court over a series of months and marry in the late summer so that we arrive in England just as the snow begins to fall.

This girl is intriguing. She is more intellectual than either Pamela or Margaret were. Perhaps Lucille is looking for intelligent female company, at least for a short time? While Enola is not so much interested in the details of mining, when I told her of Allerdale Hall's library, she was curious in a way most are not. I find myself attracted to her, at least as a friend.

This could be a dangerous match. God help the both of us.

1896- Entry 3

We have arrived home. Lucille had the fires ready when we disembarked. For the third time, I carried a woman over the threshold, but this time, she is my friend. Her little dog nipped at my heels. He is an amusing creature, though one I am sure Lucille disapproves of.

The hole in the ceiling horrified her. She questioned why we did not have it repaired, but I explained that it was nearly impossible, thanks to the weather, and Lucille could not bear to leave the house, so we stay. The mines being our business, it would also be impractical to go anywhere else. I do not think the answer satisfied her, but she was so enthralled by the library that I do think she forgot her reservations about living in Allerdale Hall. Of course, according to Lucille, she won't be living here long at all.

1896- Entry 4

Lucille is pregnant.

She has considered ending it, but also wants very much to meet this child. She calls it a perfect symbol of our perfect love. Soon, it will be very hard to conceal this from Enola. I do not know how we are going to explain Lucille's pregnancy to her. It is not as though Lucille leaves the house or sees other men.

I know Lucille hopes to kill her before she has to explain anything, but Enola is bright and healthy and the tea seems to be taking longer to grab hold. I hope this continues. I do not want to see her die. She is refreshing, after the dark days we have had.

 


	39. Chapter 39

1897- Entry 1

Enola knows.

At least, she knows that Lucille is pregnant. I am fairly certain she has figured out that the baby is mine, as she cannot imagine Lucille having taken lovers in Italy or before we were in that country. She has offered her help when the child arrives, and she has offered to serve as a midwife. Lucille is not entirely happy with this, but as she could think of no good reason not to accept the offer, she has consented.

She believes the child was conceived before Italy. I do not know. Based on her size and when Enola says many women begin to show, I would agree.

Enola is starting to struggle with the cough. The tea is taking hold. She has mentioned that she may have to recant her offer of midwifery if it gets worse, as she does not want to infect the baby if she is ill. She has also talked of quarantine so as not to spread it to Lucille. I have told her that there are some who come from the cities to work the mines who have a cough like hers because of the perpetual damp and something in the clay itself. Something those of us who are born here adapt to throughout our childhood. I hope the lie is convincing.

1897- Entry 2

It has been a few months since I wrote last. Enola grows weaker, but she is still determined to be a good aunt to the baby. She seems to have believed the tale I told of the mine sickness.

Lucille looks healthy and complains about her feet. Her lust is voracious. I fear she may leave unexplainable bruises one of these nights.

Enola and I have not yet consummated our marriage. She has said she is not entirely ready to break free of the mindset she was in when we met- prepared to take her vows. We are killing someone so blameless she sought to be a nun. If there is a god, he certainly will not appreciate this.

Enola and Lucille are opposites in every way possible. The only thing they have in common is that they both love me, in their ways. Enola, however, is content to keep love chaste. She speaks of god as though he were her friend and of forgiveness that is a certainty. When I ask her if there is anything so dark that it could not be forgiven, she tells me no, there is nothing. Not even the man who betrayed Christ would be so damned. I do not understand this notion of god. She can tell this by my expressions when she speaks of her faith and she is open and honest with her answers to my questions on the late nights when we sit by the fire speaking of such things. Lucille always interrupts with tea and I am heartened when Enola forgets she has it and dozes off beside me.

I could be content with her.

1897- Entry 3

The baby arrived today. He is small, likely early, and he is oddly shaped, as though something in him did not grow right. Lucille is devastated. She told me that she cannot believe that he is not perfect, for our love is perfect, and anything we create from it should be also. I see a shift in her that looks similar to the shift which came when she realized the moths would not take away Mother's soul. Something in her world has shattered and I do not know how the pieces will fall back together.

Enola looks after the child. He struggles to breathe, and I cannot help but think he will not survive long. This house is no place for children. Lucille has asked if she can save him. Enola dresses him in a little white gown, baptises him, and prays earnestly for his life. She has said she will care for him, but I believe Lucille thinks she means she will assure his survival.

I cannot bear to hear that rattling little chest. It breaks my heart. But because of it, I hold him ever closer.

1897- Entry 4

Lucille refuses to name him, for it is clear he will not live long. Without her knowledge, I call him my little Luke. Enola prays over him every night, her love for him earnest. And she says it is clear that my heart is in my hands when I hold him.

He is beautiful, even when Lucille says he is ugly. She nurses him, but reluctantly. I do not let her alone with him. I fear what she would do. She has often pushed milk from her breast into a cup and handed it to Enola to try to feed to him. My wife, my wonderfully patient wife, uses a tiny spoon to dish tiny portions of milk onto his waiting tongue. He laps at it eagerly and cries when there is no more. That is when she puts him to her own breast and sings to him as though he were her own. I wish he were. I would take them both from this place at a moment's notice if I could. I have considered sending them both away from this place in the middle of the night, but I do not know how I would convince Enola that there is reason enough for her to spirit the child away from his mother.

Every woman we have killed was once one of these tiny, innocent, precious souls. They had families who loved them as dearly as I love him. Who would have done anything to protect them. And another one of them is dying beside me.

She is smart and I hope she will figure out our secret before it is too late. I want Enola to live, even if it means I hang. But I am not brave enough to go to her for confession.

1897- Entry 5

Little Luke is dead.

I held him in my arms as his life ended.

I can write no more . I have no heart left for it.

1897- Entry 6

Lucille buried him in the clay, with the others. It is the same place she will soon leave Enola. Her cough worsens and her skin appears sickly pale. She now prays for herself, but not for healing. She prays to leave her body swiftly, with little pain and no lingering, so that she may hold my son and meet her god. I ask her what it will be like to see him and she describes a warm place made of light and peace. There will be no pain, and there will be nothing but joy left in her soul, all her memories made bright, all her suffering washed away, the greater plan for her existence made clear.

Knowing that we have killed her, I cannot help but think we have destroyed such great potential for good. That the plan would have been so much bigger, had we not interrupted it. I asked her if, perhaps, marrying me was not in god's plan, and should she have instead served as his handmaiden in the abbey? She laughs and assures me that while it is different than she planned, all things that happen are in god's plan and there is something, even if we do not see it, that she has done perfectly just by being in Allerdale Hall.

I cannot help but think this sort of belief is foolish, childish, and in denial of the cruelty of this world. What sort of god would plan a childhood such as mine?

But at the same time, the forgiveness and grace this god of hers is supposed to bestow is entirely appealing. Perhaps that is the trade-off with gods. The ones that are so deeply forgiving and embracing are the ones that allow horrible things to happen. They would otherwise have nothing to forgive anyone for.

1897- Entry 7

Enola is dying. That much is clear. And I have left to visit the post office. I should be there for her. She is my friend and she did so much for little Luke. But I cannot face her knowing that I have killed her.

1897- Entry 8

Enola died a peaceful death. Lucille says she sat beside her bed while she prayed the rosary time and time again until her voice faded on one final Our Father. And then she was gone.

I helped take her down to the clay.

I cannot do this again. Something has to change, whether the mining machine is financed or not. There will be no more deaths in Allerdale Hall, at least not of those we lure here.

 


	40. Chapter 40

1900- Entry 1

We have been to London. She met a girl named Eunice with a wealthy family. She is enthralled with the idea of a waltzing baronet. We have met a few times, but she returned to America with her mother.

The land of opportunity. A new century. We will follow her there to Buffalo, in the great state of New York, to try one more time to finance this machine. If it does not work, I must save myself somehow, even though I do not know how.


	41. Chapter 41

1901- Entry 1

There is no money here for the machine.

I had hoped that Carter Cushing, of the steel trade, a self-made man I greatly admire, would have found some room in his heart to help me start my own journey to wealth and prosperity, but it is not so. I am crushed. But I am also hopeful, for I have met his daughter, Miss Edith Cushing, and she is as intelligent and industrious as her father. An ambitious young woman, Miss Cushing has written a novel and is typing it for submission. She plans on sending it for publication with her name stripped to just her initials and her last name so they will not reject it automatically for being written by a woman. She does not want to be good "for a woman"- she wants to be _good_. And I believe she is. Which is one of the reasons I have chosen to break my agreement with Lucille to become engaged to Eunice McMichael. There will be little time for writing from here beyond. I have plans to lay, hints to drop, and every ounce of my strength will be going into preserving this girl's life. There is little hope that I will also survive this, at least not once Lucille discovers what I am doing.

But if I do, know this, I will never again return to Allerdale Hall. A new life will mean all things will change. I will no longer allow Lucille to touch me, nor will I allow myself the thought that I must. If I wed Miss Cushing, I will do so because I wish to, even if I do not yet love her. I will learn to love this bright spark. I will never tell her what we have done, not until I am dead and this book will serve as my confession. We will make a good life together, perhaps even here in this city of Buffalo, showcase of the promise of the future this very year, as the great Pan-American Exposition shows off the electric light and the new heights of innovation. But I cannot visit it. I shall have to do my best to be innovative on my own.

Edith has the potential to fly that we both once also had, but instead of turning towards the shining light, we were consumed by the damp of the mines and the cruelty of our parents. She has had only the bright embrace of a loving family. I hope the house cannot crush her. If it does, it will deserve even moreso to be burned to the ground, possibly with us in it.

I do not know what will become of Lucille as I carry out my plans to end this. I only hope that she has forgotten that she once said she would kill anyone who dared come between us. It seems that, if my plan works, that person will be me.

1901- Entry 2

We are in England. Carter Cushing is dead. His skull crushed by my sister. Shattered, really. From what little the coroner said, she must have smashed his head into the sink repeatedly. They tried to tell Edith he fell, but I do not know how she could have believed them. This is cruelty at its finest. I cannot believe Lucille has done this, but as I did not choose a woman of her own means, I should have foreseen that she would do something terrible to assure that the flow of the money is unimpeded. I fear the madness, or desperation, is growing.

Someone is coming.

1901- Entry 3

Edith plays often with Enola's dog. It has found its way back to the house. Lucille wanted me to kill it, but...what did it ever do to wrong us? My greatest curiosity is how it survived in this wasteland. There is little to eat here.

Perhaps Enola fed it.

1901- Entry 4

Edith swears she sees ghosts. I have often wondered who, of those we have killed, still wander these halls. It does not seem unlikely. Edith says she absolutely must leave this place. She is terrified.

The post has sent word. There are parts ready for my machine. Perhaps we can spirit away, if only for a day, to be free of this place.

I have had so little time to write, to reflect on what it is Edith is to me. She is light itself. More than friend, she is love. And I cannot help when she looks at me with adoration but feel my own chest flutter. Kisses end my thoughts and feel as if they could birth my world anew. If Lucille knew...let us simply say I hope she never knows, as unlikely as that sounds.

But she is interested in my thoughts, my delights, the machine that I spend so much time working on. The failures as well as the success. She encourages me, and I genuinely believe she wants to see it work as much as I do. This thing will save us yet. Or at least I hope it will. Lucille's nights grow darker and I dread what is coming. Everything has changed, but I do not know yet how.

1901- Entry 5

It is very early in the morning and I am not in any bed in Allerdale Hall. I have, for the first time, spent a night with my wife. I never knew love could feel like this. Or lust. The two blended so beautifully last night. There was nothing to stop us. I worshipped at the Alter of Edith and would do so every night for the rest of my life were I allowed. She is my goddess. This is what sex ought to be.

I, Sir Thomas Sharpe, of Allerdale Hall, confess to whatever god rules this universe, that I am a horrible, despicable monster and my beloved Edith has purified my soul by her bright beauty and her shining love. May it be enough to take me to a place of rest when my sister kills me.

I should ask her to flee with me come daylight. But I cannot, for that would entail telling her why. And I cannot do that to her, nor, more selfishly, can I risk losing her when I do. I have sent a letter to America that should reach her father's solicitor. It will explain everything. I do not think I have much time left and I am hopeful that Edith will walk away from Allerdale Hall in the end. If she does, she should know the truth of me.

1901- Entry 6

I must write quickly. Lucille is coming unhinged. She knows. She knows by the look in my eyes, or the scent of my clothes, or something, that I have been with Edith. She means to kill her. To kill me. Something. I do not know what. I should have fled. May god have mercy on us, for I know she will not.

 


	42. Chapter 42

Eddie closes the diary. It is very late, or perhaps very early. No one else in the house is awake. She is the first to have read it, the first to finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

"Thomas? Please? Are you here?"

But he does not answer. It is the first time he hasn't come when she has called. She asks again and still, nothing.

He is there, though, watching, fearful of what she will think of him now that she knows everything. Soon they all will. He believes he will be very suddenly without any family at all. He chides himself for his cowardice not only now, but over a century ago when he did not flee Allerdale Hall with Edith the morning after they consummated their marriage. He returns to his grave, settling into the dirt for rest. There is no reason not to. No reasonable person would still want him around, knowing all that the diary contains. He closes his eyes, hoping to lose track of time.

In the morning, Eddie passes the book to Nellie, "You have to read this. All of it. It's...just...holy shit, man, Thomas had a fucked up life. I feel really really sorry for him. No wonder he needs us."

Nellie does not sleep that night. She passes it to Daisy, who then passes it to Maria, who lastly gives it to Rose. When they come back together after having all read it, Rose puts the book in the middle of the dining table and just stares at it.

"What the hell did I just read?"

"A lot of hurt, that's what," Daisy responds."

"He was screwing his sister. And had a baby. And killed three wives."

Nellie has Edith's other pages out and is flipping through Edith's own diary, "She says here that she was nearly the fourth wife killed in Allerdale Hall, and that Alan was stabbed as well. Thomas asked him how to do it so he would live, knowing that Lucille would kill Alan if she didn't think he did- and probably Thomas as well. Apparently it was punishment for the fact that he never killed any of the wives."

"So how did they escape? And how did she know about the other wives?" Rose asks.

Nellie consults the diary, "She says Enola led her to the answers. To wax cylinders, to the envelopes about each wife, to Thomas and Lucille in bed...apparently she was a very active ghost. She even held the ghostly baby for one apparition."

Daisy sighs, "Well, my great granddad meets the definition of a serial killer." She turns to Eddie, "What are you thinking?"

"Has anyone seen Thomas since we started getting into all this?" Heads shake around the table. "I called to him after I finished reading the diary. He didn't answer. No visit, nothing. I'm worried."

"Why?" asks Rose.

"Because I don't want to lose him, that's why. Look, he's been our house ghost for...for a long time. I think Grandma even knew him."

"She did. He sat with her when Rich died, and she once told me that he was there when she found out dad was dead. He sat with her when her baby brother, Harry, died, too. Whenever somebody kicks it in this family, Thomas is around."

"Look, he let his sister kill people. I'm not sure we should be trusting him," Rose adds.

"You've trusted him your whole life, daughter of mine. This is nothing he had not done already when you first met him- when I asked him to be your playmate, too. And when you asked if you could share him with your new cousin. He's still Thomas."

Daisy nods, "Nellie's right. Nothing's changed, has it? We just know more about who he was a century ago."

"More than that. He died one hundred five years ago," Eddie says, "And you all read the diary. He's told us time and time again that he hangs around because he's doing penance for a terrible life. Now we know why. I think, after all this guilt and torment, he's earned a rest."

Maria nods, "So how do we give it to him?"

"Well if he won't come to us, I guess we're going to have to go to him."

"Oh, Eddie, how the hell are we going to do that?"

"Easy, Rose. We're going to find out where he's buried. I'm going to England. Who wants to come with me?"

 


	43. Chapter 43

Rose takes the summer semester off from school and flies to England with Eddie. The weather is beautiful when they land in London. They check into a hotel and, while Rose sleeps, Eddie drinks excessive amounts of coffee and spends the day pouring through genealogical records searching for references to Allerdale Hall or the Sharpe family. She has the documents from The British Clay Mining Corporation with her. By the time the library closes, she has a rough idea where the house sat and she knows the names of a few small villages nearby. She sits down with a map over supper and charts their journey. She asks for Thomas' help, but he does not answer.

After one more day of rest, they set off on buses and trains to the farther reaches of the country. Both women expected to see more development in the villages they pass, but some of them look very much like they must have in Thomas and Lucille's time. They find the mine first and approach the offices, explaining who they are and why they are there. The manager is kind and lets them go through the old maps and photographs. The story of how they acquired this land is, according to the manager, a bit of a legend in the company. The woman who sold it to them, the widowed Lady Sharpe, set the whole thing on fire just after she signed the deed. Her version of disposing of her possessions still on the property. Rumour has it, he tells them, that there had been murders in the house. Eddie grins at him and tells him the rumours are true- she knows this because they are descendants of Widow Sharpe. His eyes grow as wide as tea saucers.

From the mine, they move from village to village, searching church registries for the Sharpe graves. They also look for the names of his first three wives. Pamela Upton, Margaret McDermott, Enola Sciotti. But they find nothing. They stay the night in the fourth village and start again in the morning. Rose, ever the librarian, wants to reorganize all their record keeping systems to more efficient methods. Eddie tells her to knock it off more than once.

In the fifth village, which would have been the closest to Allerdale Hall before the mine, they find what they are looking for. Eddie goes to the little drug store and asks where she can buy flowers. He has some in a bucket on the back stair that he hasn't yet arranged. He asks what they are for and when she tells him they are for the graves of her ancestors, he offers them to her. She pays him and carries out an armload of flowers.

Eddie and Rose sit on the church steps and bundle stems while eating their lunch. Rose does not understand why there is one for Lucille.

"Because she was just acting out of all the horrible things that had happened to her. Even people with severe trauma in their lives need flowers. Sometimes even more."

"You're too damn nice, Ed. She deserves a dead squid."

"No. No squid. We're doing this right."

"For her, a squid would be right."

Eddie rolls her eyes, picks up her bag, and takes the bundles of flowers with her into the churchyard, "Come on. We've got graves to find." They wander amongst the headstones, reading names, reading dates. They find the women's stone first- it is shaped like three arches and spans the width of three narrow grave-sites, one name on each. A worn little lamb sits in front of Enola's section of the stone. She chooses three large bundles of flowers and places one at the base of each stone and ties a small posy around the neck of the little lamb.

"Now, Edith's diary said they buried the Sharpe's as far from the wives as they could, and also as far from each other- so Thomas and Lucille should be this way and this way." She points to the opposite corners of the cemetery. Rose trots after her, wary.

They find Thomas' headstone first. Simple, a single white slab with his name and dates of birth and death, "You stay here. I'm going to go look for Lucille's over there," Eddie says.

Rose, uncomfortable with the thought of being anywhere by herself in the graveyard, leans on the stone as she watches Eddie walk the short distance to the opposite corner to look for a matching stone. She lays her flowers at his headstone and places a hand on the granite, trying to think of something to say.

"What are you doing on his grave?"

Rose stands slowly and turns to see who spoke. A ghost woman, dressed in something that looks like velvet, her hands black and skeletal, but her face still somewhat recognizable, is studying her.

"I'm putting flowers on it. Who are you?"

"Lady Lucille Sharpe."

Rose shakes her head, "According to the laws of inheritance, he left the title to his wife...so that would have gone to their daughter...and then her daughter. Then her daughter. And then her. Over there. And I'm pretty sure the dead don't have property rights. So you can call yourself 'Lady' all you like, but the baronet's that girl over there."

Lucille's gaze follows where Rose points and watches at Eddie lays flowers against her headstone and kneel down for a moment of silence, "Who is _she_?"

"Thomas' great great granddaughter."

"How?"

"Well given what I've been told, you aren't stupid about sex. You understand the mechanics of 'how'."

Eddie rises and begins her walk back to Rose, noticing the ghostly figure as she gets closer, "Hey, Rosie- who'd you find?"

"Your great great great aunt."

She waves, "Hi, Aunt Lucille!"

Lucille seethes and cries out for Thomas to explain himself, but nothing happens. No one comes. Angry, she vanishes.

Rose stares at the spot in the air where she was, "So...is she gone? Because that was scary."

"I think so, but I don't know."

"I'm going to go wait in the car. We don't need to both be killed by ghosts."

"Awww, come on, Rose, you're not going to be killed by ghosts."

"Well if any ghosts were going to kill us, it would be these ones- or at least her. This place creeps me out. I'm going to sit in the car and you can play ghost whisperer." She walks away.

Eddie rests her hand on Thomas' headstone, "Hey. I'd like to talk. I've read this." She takes his diary out of her bag, "Please?" No answer. She sets the diary on top of his headstone.

She sighs, "Look, I don't know how to get your attention. They say not to whistle in a graveyard, but I did that on the way over here and you're still not up. So I guess I'm going to sing you something, even though I have no idea what dead people like to listen to. So here it goes." She sits down, leaning against the stone.

Under her feet, Thomas rests. And then he hears singing. It is not particularly good singing, but it is soft and it is with love.

_"Lay down, my dear brother, lay down and take your rest. Won't you lay your head upon your saviour's breast? I love you, oh, but Jesus he loves you the best, and I bid you good night, good night, good night."_

He knows the voice. But she should not be here. She should be safe and warm in Stockbridge in a barn full of wonderful steam powered things. She sings the refrain a few times. He rises.

"Eddie?"

She smiles up at him from where she sits, leaning against the side of his headstone, "Thomas!" She scrambles to her feet and throws her arms around him. He smiles and returns the embrace, "I've been so worried about you...that you'd left us." He notices the book on his stone and sighs, pushing her back and stepping away, "What's wrong?"

"You read."

"Of course I read. Everybody did. And we all still love you. Even Rosie, the chickenshit that she is...she's waiting in the car. Lucille scared her."

"Is my sister still here?" He looks around, worried.

"No. She disappeared, pissed, when Rose told her I was the rightful Lady Sharpe, as your descendent. Who'd of thunk it? Me? A British baronet." She winks at him and he dares to smile a little. "Look...there's some tough stuff in there. Actually, it's mostly tough stuff. You had a shit life and didn't get much peace. But I think I owe it to you to tell you that you've earned your rest. You've paid your debt. You've watched over us for a century and five years. That's a lot of time. You've brought comfort in times of grief. You've been the familiar voice to bring bad news. You've helped us be kids and learn to be adults. And you've saved my life. Twice. From the fire and from myself. And then you also saved the life of one of my friends. She's doing better now, but when we met in college...well, she was a mess. She wanted to kill herself. Started giving away all her favourite things. When she came by to give me her grandmother's teapot, I knew something was really, really wrong. I told her to sit, I'd make us some tea. And I did. And do you remember that thing you told me when I was at that place? The bit about all the things I'd never experience if I was to kill myself? The lover's touch, the sunlight, all of it? I passed it on, told her I heard it from an old family friend. I did a lot of paraphrasing because it had been ten years, but the part that I know I got right was from the last sentence, 'there are things that will fill your heart, that will break it in two, that will change everything you know about being human, that you simply must experience.' She stared at me like the whole world had changed and nothing looked like it did before. She looked at the teapot full of hot water and just broke down crying. When she was done, she asked if she could have it back and I told her yeah, after we finished having tea. And she laughed. It was remarkable. You did something powerful. You saved Jackie. If I ever have another friend going through the hard shit, I'm going to tell them the same thing."

"Eddie, that is beautiful, but I cannot rest. Not yet. And I would miss you all far too much."

"But why not? You've now saved more people than Lucille's tea killed. You've had a family and kept it for over a century. And even after reading everything, all of us still love you. You're our friend. Our family." She closes the distance between them and places a hand on his cheek, "Thomas, please. Don't think this is some flip little trick to try to get you to go away. It's probably the hardest fucking thing I've ever done. I'm asking to lose you...because you deserve it. Because after reading that diary, that heartbreaking goddamned diary...my god, you need to have eternal peace. And you will."

"But what of our sins?"

"Sin is a bullshit man-made concept used to scare us into compliance. I don't believe in it. I believe in forgiveness and lives lived the best they can be. I believe that kindness and love make up for all our failings. And Thomas, you love hard. I read your letter to Edith- the one in the beat up envelope. You're a good man. You cared deeply about Lucille and you didn't know what else you could do. And it hurt you, too, to watch them die- you killed a little of yourself in order to make sure she survived. And don't tell me you're a monster like that excuses or explains anything."

"Eddie..."

"I know, I know, I'm standing here like you're not my great great grandfather and like you're my best friend instead...but you _are_ my best friend. And because you are, I want you to find your peace. Not here, in the world of the living, but the bigger peace that comes after and has no more heartbreak or pain. There are people waiting for you there who will love to see you again."

"Will they?"

"I've read Edith's 'Thomas diary'- yes, she's going to be so happy to see you, she'll probably hug you right away."

"But Lucille..."

"Can find her own rest. She's a ghost, she doesn't need you to protect her anymore, or to keep her from starving- she's already dead. Don't let her control you. You've found your family on your own. You've spent decades with us instead of here with her doing whatever ghosts do to kill time. She's not going to stop you from moving on."

"I cannot."

"Yes, you can. You are a strong person. Stronger than most. I don't know how you lived with the guilt, with knowing what she was doing, and with her. I don't know how you survived everything she did to you. You've got to have a will made of iron and a heart made for breaking. But it's over. And you're just one step away from being free." She kisses his cheek just below the gaping wound that she has never asked about.

He smiles and kisses her forehead and holds her tight, "Thank you, sweet child." When he lets her go, he turns to face the car and waves, "Goodbye, Eddie. Tell them I love them?"

"Of course."

"Good. Good. Because I truly do."

"I know. Now go. You deserve this more than anybody else I've ever known."

He smiles and dissipates into the low fog that has rolled into the cemetery. Eddie picks up his diary and smiles as she walks back to the car. As Rose drives away, she swears she sees Lucille staring at the flowers on her grave as though they are possibly the only flowers she has ever received.

They fly back to Michigan the following day. Daisy picks them up at the airport and drives them home. Before they crash into their beds at nearly two in the morning, they sit around the dining room table with mugs of coffee and tea with Daisy, Maria and Nellie.

"So...you found them?" Daisy asks.

"Yeah. Rose was to chicken to stay in the graveyard, though."

"You didn't have a conversation with Lucille. You could feel the anger around her."

"True, I was off placing flowers."

"You're right, though, Ed. Flowers were what she needed. She looked like she'd never seen them before when we were driving off."

"Only person who would have ever given them to her would have been Thomas."

Nellie interrupts, "Did you find him? Speak to him? What did he say?"

Eddie sighs and sets down her coffee, "Well I told him to do what we talked about. He was hesitant. He really didn't want to leave us and he thought he couldn't. That he still had to repay the world for something. But in the end...he went. He told me to tell you all that he loves you."

Nellie wipes a tear, "It is going to be quiet in the house without him, but I hope he's at rest. He deserves it."

Maria nods, "I hope he's found heaven."

 


	44. Chapter 44

_Thomas is warm. Like he is in an embrace that will never end. A patient, calm, feeling of being loved so dearly that someone will never let go washes over him as he fades fully into this new reality. A voice calls to him. Edith. And then there are others, laughter, and the sound of little bells as everyone moves together toward him in a crush of...not bodies, for they do not have bodies, but of something. Energy. Souls. Whatever. It is not sight, in the traditional sense, but something different, that tells him his entire family is there, Charlotte's branch, Eliot's branch, Edith, and Alan. And they are all so happy that he has joined them._ _And somewhere in this energy, he feels Enola's spirit, and his son's, and he is overjoyed to know they are both here, and have been embraced by his family._

_He has felt this feeling once before, this utter peace in the_ _knowledge_ _of love unconditional. Late night, after he and Edith explored one another's bodies for the first and only time, he had watched her in awe and wonder, his heart full, his mind free of the questions that he knew would come in the morning. It is this same feeling that fills him now as he is nuzzled and snuggled by the souls around him._

_Sir Thomas Sharpe is dead._

_But he is also at peace._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sharpe Family Tree](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzsplaPkYl_6bnlYQW9HY0xYeVU/view?usp=sharing)
> 
> [Full English Descendants timeline and reference image](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzsplaPkYl_6eG9KaDF2ZkNjSmc/view?usp=sharing)
> 
> This sort of reference has been mentioned as useful by a reader. You will likely have to zoom in to see both of these, but most definitely the full reference image. It is a huge picture and contains a lot of information. This is the only way I could keep track of the massive time scope this fic covers while I was writing it, as well as tracking the generations and how old they were in relation to each other. The large image may be blurry in the Drive previewer. I found it worked best to download it and open it from my own computer to zoom in.


End file.
